While some health professionals say patients are making use of the government initiative, Mallee Division of General Practice chief executive officer Lydia Senior regarded the figure as low.

And Lime Medical Clinic’s Dr John Dyson-Berry is encouraging more people to take up the offer.

He said fewer people were coming in specifically for swine flu injections now, although about 60 per cent of patients offered the vaccine took it.

“It’s being provided literally free of charge – both the consultation and the swine flu (vaccination),” he said.

“So I really think most people should take it up unless they’ve got a strong personal or medical reason not to.”

The clinic has administered about 500 vaccinations to Sunraysia people since the Panvax vaccine arrived in Mildura on September, 30.

Twenty-one million doses of the vaccine were made available nationwide as part of a Federal Government initiative to prevent a second outbreak of the deadly virus in Australia.

For more of this story, purchase your copy of Monday’s Sunraysia Daily 16/11/2009.