Australia orders 21 million doses of swine flu vaccine

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Australia orders 21 million doses of swine flu vaccine
July 14, 2009

Australian health authorities have ordered 21 million doses of swine flu vaccine, with an immunisation program to expected to start in October.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) now says the pandemic is "unstoppable".

More than 90,000 swine flu cases have been reported worldwide, including 429 deaths, the most recent WHO numbers from last week show. Australia has so far recorded 19 deaths and more than 9,000 cases.

WHO says a vaccine for the A(H1N1) virus should be available as early as September.

Australia's Chief Medical officer Jim Bishop said the nation's health authorities had ordered 21 million doses of the vaccine.

"What that does is allow us to cover either half the population if we need to give two jabs or the whole population," Prof Bishop told the Seven Network on Tuesday.

Prof Bishop said the government would be trying to make the vaccine as widely available as possible, but clinical trials had to be completed first.

"We need to do some trials to make sure it's safe, so we're saying by October we should be able to start a program, but that depends really on manufacture being successful."

He said swine flu was a "mild disease in the great majority" of cases, he said.

"It does have a hard edge, but overall it's a pretty moderate sort of disease, it's not like seasonal flu, it's a bit more worrying than that, but nevertheless most people will go through it and have a very mild illness which they recover from very quickly," he said.

"But we are seeing a few people now thrown up that have other medical conditions, being unwell and also we are seeing a few people that were previously well but are severely affected by the disease."

Swine flu was likely to "run on" after winter as it had done in the United States, he said.

"We're more concerned about the second wave of this thing, which might be more severe than the first."

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/aust...90714-dj91.html