The Department of Health (DOH) will respect President Ma Ying-jeou's wish on getting vaccinated for influenza A (H1N1), a senior official said Wednesday. 'Whether and when President Ma should get vaccinated with locally produced H1N1 vaccine is a political issue and the DOH's stance on the issue is to respect the president's own choice, ' DOH Minister Yaung Chih-liang said in response to lawmakers' questions at a Legislative Yuan session. During the session, many legislatiors from both the ruling and opposition camps expressed concern over whether Ma is on the priority list to receive shots of locally produced H1N1 vaccine. Some ruling Kuomintang lawamkers questioned why Ma was placed in the lowest priority group, far below education and communications ministers who are included in the broadly defined category of personnel in charge of disease control and prevention. But opposition Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying said the DOH's suggestion that Ma get a shot of locally produced H1N1 vaccine is not wise because the safety of the Adimmune Corp. produced vaccine has not been verified. In response, Yaung said he would not oppose putting Ma in the broadly defined disease control personnel category because the president is often on community outreach tours. 'But local society is now shrouded in a strange atmosphere... if Ma is placed high on the priority list, it could draw criticism that he dominates national resources... but if he does not receive the shot, some people would accuse him of lacking confidence in locally produce vaccine,' Yaung said. Against this backdrop, Yaung said, the DOH will not make any suggestion and will respect the president's free choice as the issue has become a political one. President Ma himself said last Wednesday that he will volunteer to be among the first recipients of the locally produced H1N1 vaccine to increase public confidence on the product, even though he is not on a list of priority recipients. The DOH-initiated priority list is led by typhoon-affected victims, medical personnel in charge of disease control and prevention, and pregnant women. They will be followed on the priority list by pre-school children, seriously ill patients, elementary, junior and senior high school students, individuals in the 19-24 age bracket and those over 25 at high risk of cardiopulmonary diseases, healthy people in the 25-49 age bracket, and those between 50 and 64. Meanwhile, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) reported Wednesday that seven more patients had been hospitalized in Taiwan for severe H1N1 symptoms in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total hospitalization cases to 305 since the outbreak began. Of that number, 18 had died, 30 are still being treated in local hospitals, while the other 257 have been discharged. The seven newly hospitalized patients include five males and two females, aged between 7 and 77. Among them, three are elderly people and two are young children aged under 8. A CECC official said Sunday that the intensity of the swine flu outbreak is on the downswing in Taiwan as the rate of people being hospitalized with the H1N1 virus had clearly declined. 