The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) has approved a new vaccine for
swine flu, to enable the Government
officials to begin a mass vaccination
campaign by next month.
A limited supply of vaccine is about
to flow in the market by the first
week of October and around October
15, 45 million doses should arrive,
said Health and Human services Secretary
Kathleen Sebelius. The vaccine will
be available at 90,000 sites including
schools and clinics across U.S.
The U.S. government purchased 195
million doses for nearly 100 million
Americans and still the vaccine supply
will prompt much more demand. The
vaccination every year will eradicate
swine flu completely in the near future.
But this year seems to be unusual
as many people have to gather twice
for swine flu vaccine, once to be
inoculated against regular winter
flu and second time for H1N1 vaccination.
The U.S. Centre for Disease Control
and Prevention has recommended that
pregnant women, people in contact
with infants, medical personnel, and
people aged between 6 months and 24
years and adults under 65 with underlying
medical conditions should be the first
to take H1N1 vaccination.
“The flu is the flu right now.
Tamilflu and Relenza are the two drugs
available for treatment,” Sebelius
said.
Sebelius announced the FDA’s
approval of 2009 H1N1 vaccine made
by four of the expected five manufacturers:
CSL Ltd of Australia, Switzerland’s
Novartis Vaccines, Sanofi Pasteur
of France, Swiftwater.,Pa., and Maryland
based MedImmune LLC which make the
only nasal spray flu vaccine and the
approval was pending for GlaxoSmithkline.
The right dose of the vaccine will
be decided by the National Institute
of Health. They announced that one
dose of the vaccine should be taken
for prevention of adults from flu.
It will kick start in just 8 to 10
days after administration, scientists
predicted. The decision for the right
dose for children and pregnant women
are under study.
The mass vaccination of swine flu
seems to be a long-used regular flu
vaccine. The side effects include
soreness or redness at the injection
site and fever.
|
