H1N1v VACCINE READY FOR EARLY NEXT YEAR, ECDC Director SAID.

Giuseppe · Jun 25, 2009

(...)

A vaccine for H1N1v? Perhaps at the beginning of the next winter, instead the autumn.

This said Zsuzsanna Jakab, ECDC director.

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ECDC?s guidance is based on existing scientific evidence. For some measures, such as regular hand washing, this evidence is strong and uncontroversial.
In other areas there is clearly scope for debate and differing judgements. There are tough policy decisions that need to be made about how far to disrupt people?s daily lives in the name of disease control.
Decisions on what type of preventive care, and what type of medical treatment, countries offer have major financial implications. I know this from my time as State Secretary at the Ministry of Health in Hungary.
More than this, the politics of who receives the vaccine ? and who does not ? could be very delicate. At a later stage in the pandemic, it is likely that Europe and the world will have a limited supply of vaccine against the new H1N1 influenza virus.
Contrary to some media reports, this is more likely to be early next year rather than this autumn. But whenever it happens, balancing competing claims on the vaccine within nations and between nations is high politics indeed.

St Michael · Jun 25, 2009

Re: H1N1v VACCINE READY FOR EARLY NEXT YEAR, ECDC Director SAID.

ironorehopper said:
Contrary to some media reports, this is more likely to be early next year rather than this autumn.

This is not good.