People with health conditions will be first to receive swine flu vaccine in October, followed by pregnant women
People with health conditions such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease will be the first to receive the swine flu vaccine in October, the government said today.
The vaccination programme, which will give priority to those aged between six months and 65 years old whose health problems could be aggravated by the flu, will begin two months later than the government previously stated.
Next in line for the vaccine after at-risk groups will be all pregnant women, subject to licensing arrangements on the most suitable trimester to give the jab, people living in households with patients with suppressed immune systems, such as cancer patients receiving chemotherapy or those with HIV, and people over 65 with health problems aggravated by flu.
At the same time, frontline health and social care workers will be vaccinated to keep essential services running, such as hospitals. The rest of the population will then be vaccinated.
Three hundred thousand doses of the vaccine have been delivered by the manufacturers this month and 54.6m doses will have arrived by the end of the year, said the chief medical officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson.
Trials on the vaccines are taking place in England and across Europe this month and the European Medicines Agency is expected to licence the drug in late September or early October.
Details of the vaccination programme came as government figures showed the number of new swine flu cases has continued to fall, with an estimated 25,000 patients diagnosed in England in the last week.
The number of deaths in England linked to the H1N1 virus jumped by eight to 44 in the past week, according to the health protection agency.
The agency, which monitors infectious diseases, said 371 patients had been admitted to hospital in England – down on last week's total of 530.
Experts have said the number of new cases should continue to fall while schools and universities are on their summer holidays.
The majority of cases continue to be mild and there is no sign that the virus is mutating or developing resistance to antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu, said the agency.
In the last seven days cases of swine flu reported worldwide have increased by 11% and the number of deaths by 27%, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Globally, there are now 215,090 reported cases, and 1,735 infected patients have died.
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