Europe Offers Vaccinations To Contain Swine Flu
By JAMES KANTER and MATTHEW SALTMARSH
Published: August 18, 2009
Anxiety over the new swine flu strain may have eased over the summer, but millions of Europeans will soon receive a sharp reminder of its virulence as governments prepare for a large-scale vaccination effort aimed at keeping a second, and possibly deadlier, wave of infections at bay.
With another surge in cases of the H1N1 flu expected as soon as September, medical experts say the battle to tame the first pandemic flu in four decades is just getting under way in Europe.
European Union health officials emphasize that most human cases of the flu have been mild and that patients have recovered without special treatment. In another sign of normalcy, a committee of European Union health officials recommended last week that schools reopen as usual after the summer break.
But with limited amounts of vaccines expected to become available this year, health authorities are girding for many more cases over the autumn and winter flu season, when viruses spread more easily.
''If we get a lot more infections, then there will be a lot more complications in people's medical conditions and that means a lot more deaths,'' said Nigel Dimmock, an emeritus professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Warwick in England and a flu expert.
Through Sunday, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded 38,187 confirmed cases and 60 deaths in European countries, part of a total of 228,921 confirmed cases and 2,084 deaths worldwide.
Those statistics show that Europe has suffered a relatively small number of cases. According to the World Health Organization, countries in North and South America have reported the vast majority of infections and deaths. But this is exactly the time, experts believe, that Europeans should be girding for a more widespread outbreak.
The global pattern of the virus's spread indicated that ''the pandemic is just beginning'' in Europe, said Nikki Shindo, a spokeswoman on influenza for the W.H.O.
Ordinarily the process of developing new influenza vaccines is lengthy, so regulatory authorities in Europe have applied fast-track procedures to make them available as quickly as possible.
As part of that process, pharmaceutical companies like Baxter, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis are adapting existing vaccines to the H1N1 strain, according to the European Medicines Agency in London. The most pressing issue now facing governments is choosing groups most at risk in their countries so that vaccinations are correctly prioritized when they become widely available.
PHOTO: Subway commuters passed a swine flu warning in London. The authorities have recorded 38,187 cases in European countries.(PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY RAIN/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY)