WHO doubts speedy swine flu vaccinations

BRITON: The world’s top health official said Wednesday a swine flu vaccine would not be readily available for months, undermining national plans for rapid immunisation against the accelerating pandemic.

The comments by World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan came as Australia and Japan reported a surge in cases of the A(H1N1) virus, and Argentina dramatically upped its death toll from 94 to 137 in just three days.

“There’s no vaccine. One should be available soon, in August. But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that has proven safe,” Chan told Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

“Clinical trial data will not be available for another two to three months,” she added, contradicting health officials in Britain and elsewhere who said the first stocks would start arriving in August.

WHO director of vaccine research Marie-Paul Kieny, calling the pandemic “unstoppable”, had said Monday that a swine flu vaccine should be available as early as September.

Germany said it envisioned having to order some 25 million doses of vaccine to immunise nearly a third of its population.

Australia, the Asia-Pacific region’s worst-hit country, has already placed an advance order for 21 million dosages enough to immunise its entire population.

Australia and Argentina are now in the southern hemispheric winter, and officials fear a major rise in infections when the northern hemisphere enters the colder months and regular influenza becomes rampant.

Italy may have to deal with between three and four million cases of swine flu by March 2010, deputy health minister Ferruccio Fazio said.

London, Wednesday, AFP