Government Health chiefs have been slammed by Brentwood and Ongar MP Eric Pickles for an "unacceptable" shortage of the vaccine against killer disease tuberculosis which, he says, is putting young lives at risk.

And he hopes to force the Government to admit to the problems that exist in the vaccination programme in Essex by applying for a special adjournment debate on the issue in the House of Commons.

"The current situation, as far as I am aware from information supplied to me, is that there is a 36 month backlog in the BCG vaccination programme which protects young people from tuberculosis," said Mr Pickles, who has asked over 20 questions about the issue in the Commons since November.

"Questions to ministers produce answers that are far from satisfactory and there seems to be no impetus to speed up the production of vaccines and for these to be distributed to those young people who will benefit from protection against these dreadful diseases."

Tuberculosis, once the scourge of industrial societies, was thought to have been wiped out in Britain by an extensive vaccination programme. But in recent years it has reappeared in poor inner-city areas.

"The point is that children from Brentwood and Ongar are playing competitive games and sports with children from areas of East London where tuberculosis is starting to grow again," says Mr Pickles.

"It is utterly ludicrous, and when I get my teeth into something like this I won't let go because what is happening is wrong."

Dr Kabir Padamsee, medical director of the Barking, Havering and Brentwood Community Health Care Trust, said the Department of Health suspended the BCG immunisation programme in October to start a national programme of vaccinations against meningitis.

"From our point of view, obviously we would have liked to have done both, but we had to push forward with the meningicoccal C programme first," he said.

"The BCG immunisation programme has not been restarted yet, the reason being that the Department of Health is only giving it to vulnerable groups, presumably because of a national shortage of the vaccine.

''We do not know when it will be available to us but the moment it is we will continue with the programme."

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