Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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438. To ask the Minister for Health the proposed changes to the tuberculosis, BCG, vaccination programme, following the Health Information and Quality Authority health technology assessment, and subsequent public consultation on proposed changes to the programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5480/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) and the National TB Advisory Committee have recommended stopping routine BCG vaccination of newborn babies and instead provide selective vaccination of babies in high-risk groups. The Department of Health requested the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to conduct a Health Technology Assessment (HTA) to review the implications of this change.

The HTA was published by HIQA on 8 December 2015. It recommended that sufficient resources for enhanced TB control and public awareness efforts must be provided before there is any change in national vaccination policy and strategy. However, HIQA has recommended that any change in strategy must be supported by a clear commitment to enhanced systematic and comprehensive tuberculosis (TB) control measures.

Tuberculosis (TB) is a notifiable disease under the Infectious Diseases (Amendment) Regulations 2011 (S.I. No. 452 of 2011). In 2015, 318 cases of TB were notified to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, giving a national TB notification rate of 6.9 per 100,000, the lowest rate reported since surveillance commenced. According to the World Health Organisation, the definition of a low incidence TB country is one with a national TB notification rate of less than 10 cases per 100,000, Ireland is in this category.

In Ireland the number of cases of TB has been falling. Most European countries, including the UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland do not give BCG vaccine to all babies. Babies are not at risk of TB because of the delay in getting BCG vaccine in Ireland.