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All nations must have access to vaccines, says WHO

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-15 09:33

The swine flu pandemic has grown "unstoppable" and all nations will need access to vaccines, a WHO official said on Monday, as 12 new deaths were reported and a study raised fresh concerns.

Britain, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, the Philippines and Thailand all reported deaths on Monday, while Saudi Arabia shut an international school after 20 students were diagnosed with the H1N1 virus.

As the death toll increased, the World Health Organization official said a swine flu vaccine should be available as early as September and all countries would need to be able to protect themselves.

A group of vaccination experts concluded after a recent meeting that "the H1N1 pandemic is unstoppable and therefore all countries would need to have access to vaccines," says Marie-Paul Kieny, WHO director on vaccine research.

Health workers should be at the top of the list for vaccination since they will be in high demand as people continue to fall sick, she adds.

Countries would be free to decide on their national priorities, but other groups should include pregnant women and anyone over 6 months old who has chronic health problems, the WHO official says.

Particular attention would have to be paid to children since they are considered "amplifiers" of the spread of the virus, especially when gathered in schools, Kieny adds.

More than 90,000 swine flu cases have been reported worldwide, the most recent WHO numbers show.

While most cases have been considered mild, a study released on Monday said the virus causes more lung damage than ordinary seasonal flu strains but still responds to antiviral drugs.

The worry about the present strain of H1N1 is that it could pick up genes from other flu strains that would enable it to be both highly virulent and contagious, and these warnings are spelt out in the new study.

"Sustained person-to-person transmission might result in the emergence of more pathogenic variants, as observed in the 1918 pandemic virus," it says.