Re: A H1N1 death toll reaches 100
Re: A H1N1 death toll reaches 100
Swine flu claims 101 lives in ČR, low demand for vaccination
ČTK | 25 February 2010
Prague, Feb 24 (CTK) - Swine flu has claimed 101 lives in the Czech Republic so far, including one in the past week, the Czech Health Ministry announced Wednesday.
Only 27 percent of the imported swine flu vaccines have been used to date, including 450 doses in the past week.
Last week the situation was similar. Czechs do not incline to undergo the vaccination, many refuse it.
Experts say the vaccination still has a sense, even for people who are not chronically ill and therefore not that endangered by swine flu.
The state originally ordered one million vaccines worth 220 million crowns. Last week it agreed with the producer that it will not take 30 percent of the planned supply.
At present there are 238,000 vaccines in the Czech Republic, and 462,000 are waiting for transfer in Belgium.
In the past week the National Flu Laboratory registered 12 new cases of swine flu, the same number as in the previous week.
A total of 2,445 swine flu cases have been confirmed in the ten-million Czech Republic.
Chief sanitary officer Michael Vit, nevertheless, says these figures are only the tip of the iceberg. Only complicated cases of flu are tested in laboratories, while a much higher number of people have caught the pandemic flu virus.
Roman Prymula, head of the Czech vaccinology society, told CTK he expects further waves of flu to come. The course of the disease is unlikely to be serious as the virus does not have a big potential to mutate at the moment, Prymula said.
He said he expects the swine flu virus to circulate in the next season as well, therefore the pandemic stem will be part of the seasonal flu vaccine next year.
http://praguemonitor.com/2010/02/25/swine-flu-claims-101-lives-čr-low-demand-vaccination