Swine flu blues: Vaccinations could be delayed
Summertime and forgetting about swine flu is easy. But the World Health Organization yanked us back to reality.
The H1N1 virus isn’t taking a vacation. Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, said the “pandemic is unstoppable” and “all countries will need to have access to vaccines” in a briefing yesterday.
But making a swine flu vaccine looks more difficult than expected, which could delay when folks could get immunized against the bug.
Even when a vaccine becomes available there won’t be enough to go around. So WHO recommends that health-care workers get jabbed first.
Covering flu, pandemics and preparednessA big problem remains that there simply aren’t enough vaccine factories to supply the world’s needs, WHO Director General Margaret Chan said today. She defended the patent system and called for incentives to encourage innovation by drugmakers.
Comments
Please read our blog commenting policies.
-
Join us in Atlanta
for Health Journalism 2012
Fellowship applications
due Feb. 27
New at HealthJournalism.org
- Data gives depth to investigation of patient safety
- What reporters should know about Alzheimer’s and related dementias
- Apply for fellowships to attend Health Journalism 2012
- AHCJ asks Supreme Court to permit broadcast of arguments in health reform case
- Tips for print, online journalists to embrace broadcast opportunities
- Numbers reveal how often, or how rarely, states check doctors’ disciplinary records
- How I did it: Falsified charts in nursing homes linked to patient care
- Access Denied: Looking at a lack of health care availability
- Transparency & medical errors: Public reporting of patient harm is a potent force
