Drug firm donates 50m swine flu jabs to poorest nations

Young children in the world’s poorest countries will be protected against swine flu with vaccines donated from a British drug company. About a year after the global flu pandemic was declared, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it expects donations of pandemic H1N1 vaccine to start arriving in poor countries by May. The global health body hopes to start receiving the first of 50 million doses from pharmaceuticals maker GlaxoSmithKline later this month. Shipments would continue “between end of November and May,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told reporters in Geneva. "We hope it is the first of many donations," he added. Hartl said that young children, because they are so vulnerable to extreme symptoms from the pandemic flu, ought to be protected.

Finding vaccines for developing countries that can’t afford to buy them themselves is a priority for the organisation. It aims to supply enough vaccine to immunize between 2 and 10 per cent of people in 95 of the very poorest countries. But the exact figure will depend on donations from manufacturers and rich nations. Health care workers are deemed top priority for the first batches. "This is a real gesture of global solidarity towards those who would not be otherwise able to have access to the vaccine," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a statement. "WHO will now work to see that these vaccines are distributed to those who need them."

Glaxo and Sanofi-Aventis are among some 25 companies producing pandemic vaccine and other drug makers including Switzerland's Roche Holding is making antivirals for use as a frontline H1N1 drug. The WHO has repeatedly said the H1N1 vaccines being produced are safe. "The trade-off or the balance between risk and benefit for using an H1N1 vaccine, we believe, falls for the moment very much on the side of benefit," the spokesman said. Staff at the WHO's Geneva headquarters have not so far been vaccinated for H1N1 in an organised campaign, though health workers going on mission would be seen as a priority to get the protection, he said.

In the UK, cases of swine flu have risen slightly this week, with an estimated 84,000 new infections in the past week against 78,000 the week before.Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer suggested that the smaller number of new cases this week might be due to the half term school break – there was a marked reduction in new cases in the youngest age groups.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children