The first U.S. roll-out of vaccines against the new swine flu virus will be 3.4 million doses of MedImmune's nose spray, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday.
Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation's global health program believes that poorer nations without the funds or ability to produce a vaccine for H1N1 should get equal access to the limited supplies even if the richer countries paid for and developed the vaccine.
With the flu season fast approaching the President today provided an overview of what's being done. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is leading the way on public health preparedness and response efforts, the Principal Federal Official for domestic incidents, the Secretary of Homeland Security, is coordinating the supporting activities of Federal departments and agencies and facilitating response actions with State, local and territorial governments and tribal and private sector partners, while other Cabinet officials are leading complementary initiatives in their area of responsibility.
Even as White House attempts to speed up production and distribution of an H1N1 flu vaccine Dr. Thomas Frieden the new head of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the vaccine won't be ready until mid-October.
The World Health Organization (WHO) today released guidelines for the use of antivirals in the management of patients infected with the H1N1 pandemic virus commonly known as Swine Flu. If states in part that healthy patients who don't have complications do not need to be treated with antivirals like Tamiflu.
