The Health Service Executive today rejected claims it failed to act on warnings of an increased incidence of meningitis in vaccinated children.
A HSE spokesman told ireland.comit had "responded immediately" to a recommendation from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) two months ago that a booster vaccine programme against the infection was urgently required.
The HSE said today it is seeking tenders for the procurement of between 150,000 and 170,000 doses of a booster vaccine for Hib - the bacterium that causes meningitis.
Yesterday it emerged a two-year-old Co Louth boy died from meningitis caused by the bacterium haemophilus influenzae. It is understood he had already been vaccinated against the disease.
The HSE said the first batch of 50,000 vaccines was expected in late October with the rest coming in December and January respectively.
But Dr Kevin Connolly, a consultant paediatrician at Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe, and a member of the NIAC, said the recommendation was made in July but supplies of the vaccine will not be available until November.
Dr Connolly said it is unfortunate there has a delay in implementing the committee's recommendation.
He blamed the delay on the availability of funding and the fact that the amount of money required involved a tendering process.
Dr Connolly said the particular vaccine recommended by NIAC is currently only available in very small numbers and is not - as has been claimed - in plentiful supply.
Earlier there was confusion after Dr Niall O'Cleirigh, spokesman for the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), claimed most general practitioners had the Hib vaccine at this point in time.
But later the ICGP released a statement saying this was incorrect and "based on a misunderstanding".
Dr Connolly said: "Up to recently only about 10,000 doses were purchased annually and we are going to need about 150,000".
The immunisation shot currently given to infants at two, four and six months is known as the 5-in-1 and includes a vaccine against Hib infection.
Up to now a 4-in-1 booster has been given to children between three and four years of age to top up immunity.
Dr Connolly said an increased incidence of Hib infection was detected in June of this year and prompted an urgent meeting of the NIAC.
It recommended a single dose of Hib vaccine be given to children between 13 months and four years of age.
Dr Connolly said the immune system of infants is immature so the protection they get from the initial 5-in-1 vaccine only lasts between one and two years on average.
He said the increased incidence of infection has taken place in the last 12 months.
"While the vaccine was being given there was still natural infection in the community which acted as a booster. Because the uptake of the immunisation has been so good there is less natural infection and so children are not getting a natural booster and hence the need for a vaccine booster," Dr Connolly said.
