Dr. Colm Henry:

It is an interesting question because Covid-19 brought significant disruption in so many ways, apart from the obvious ways to every individual life in the country. Covid-19 behaved differently because there was no immunity in the population and no vaccine. In its initial state it had a very high rate of conversion to serious illness, to people needing intensive care and to death. The vaccine was a radical intervention. We now have data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC, that estimates, based on the impact of the vaccine programme between December 2021 and March 2023, there were 16,000 fewer deaths than would have been expected without the vaccine programme, almost 4,000 fewer admissions to intensive care - which we would not have been able to facilitate because we did not have the capacity - and 100,000 fewer hospitalisations than would have been expected. We now know through analysis the impact the vaccine programme has had.

In parallel with other European countries, we saw an unexpected rise in invasive group A streptococcus from the autumn of last year until April-May of this year. The numbers have levelled off significantly again. We saw annual figures rise from a predictable level of 150 cases to more than 400 cases, with a higher proportion of those affected being children. We are used to the same number every year and the same percentage of those affected being children. We saw a higher absolute number and 45% of those affected were children. Sadly, there were some cases of mortality. Those rates have levelled off again to where they were before the surge. Why did it happen? There are many theories. The HPSC is linking with European partners to do research to look at the factors that led to the unexpected surge in invasive group A streptococcus that was seen throughout Europe. We do not have the answer yet. There are many theories, some of which I would say are uninformed, linking it to vaccines. There is no evidence that is the case. As I outlined, the evidence from analysis of the Covid-19 vaccination programme is that many lives were saved.

We have seen a fall-off in uptake of the primary childhood vaccinations, including those against measles, mumps, rubella and meningitis, which is troubling. We heard from Dr. Martin that meningitis is now a rare illness in hospitals thanks to the vaccination programme. We should never take for granted the huge gains that were made in not seeing measles anymore, so much so that doctors in training would not recognise these conditions now. We are concerned about the rate of drop-off. We have put together a special task force in the HSE.