According to the World Health Organization the new H1N1 virus is ‘unstoppable’. It gave drug makers a full go-ahead to manufacture vaccines against the pandemic influenza strain.
Every country needs to vaccinate citizens against the swine flu virus and must choose who else would get priority after nurses, doctors and technicians. The new virus attacks people differently than seasonal flu - affecting more of younger people, pregnant women, the severely obese and seemingly healthy adults, and causing disease deep in the lungs.
WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) recognised that the H1N1 pandemic is unstoppable and therefore all countries need access to the vaccine.
The SAGE recognised that healthcare workers should be immunised first in all countries in order to retain a functional health system as the virus evolves. After that, each country should decide who is next in line, based on the virus's unusual behaviour.
Seasonal influenza is deadly enough - each year it is involved in 2,50,000 to 5,00,000 deaths globally. This includes mostly the elderly or those with some kind of chronic disease that makes them more vulnerable to flu, such as asthma. Also pregnant women and persons with morbid obesity are at risk for severe disease and death from infection.
WHO would be working to get better virus strains for companies from which to make vaccines. The strains that had been distributed did not grow very well in chicken eggs - used to make all flu vaccines.
The WHO also suggested that countries should continue with their normal vaccination programmes against the seasonal flu.
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