Melbourne family grieve mother's flu-related death as questions raised over vaccine qualities

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The death of a Melbourne mother from flu-like symptoms has come as serious questions are raised over the quality of this year’s vaccine.

Tennille Smith, a 40-year-old mother-of-three, became another victim of Australia’s worst flu season in history last week.

She had battled the flu and pneumonia for nearly three weeks. She was one of more than 500 people who died from flu-related illnesses this year.

Her father, Garry Seamer, told 7News: “Tennille, I think, had it in her mind that ‘it’s no use going to the doctors, I’ve only got the flu’. She’s paid with her life by not doing that.”

Some doctors are blaming the batch of flu vaccine for the staggering number of deaths and claim there were better options available, but the government says it was not possible to get them into the country.

“The companies did not bring the better vaccines into Australia. We do know they’re working through a licensing process. They should be available in 2018,” influenza expert Professor Paul van Buynder, from the Immunisation Coalition, said.

The Immunisation Coalition says there were nearly 91,000 laboratory-confirmed notifications of influenza last year.

So far this year, there have been nearly two and a half times as many cases – almost 220,000 notifications.

New South Wales was the state hardest hit followed by Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia.

But some GPs believe the quality of the vaccine is not the reason for the dire numbers.

Dr Abhi Verma from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners told SBS World News: “I think the issue is that the vaccination currently available is safe and certainly well tested, but primarily, we’re testing too few people.”

But the government’s chief medical officer, Professor Brendan Murphy, says cost had nothing to do with it.

“It is completely incorrect that we purchased vaccines other than the best available and the suggestion that it was based on cost is completely erroneous,” he stated.

“They were not an alternative at all. It was not possible to consider them last year because they weren’t registered or available for purchase in this country.”

Under instruction from Health Minister Greg Hunt, Professor Murphy is examining how to strengthen the immunisation scheme before next flu season – including talking with manufacturers about new vaccines.

And for those who did get vaccinated and still ended up with the flu, frustration is rampant.

“You kind of assume that you’re not going to get the flu when you get the vaccine, but I know it’s not 100 per cent,” one patient told SBS.

Another said: “I have two kids, so I was still going with the two kids. Mums don’t have a break, but yeah, it wasn’t fun.”

– with additional reporting from Marese O’Sullivan