By Phil Serafino Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Manufacturers can produce about 3 billion doses of swine flu vaccine annually, less than the 5 billion initially estimated, the World Health Organization said. There won’t be enough shots to protect all 6.8 billion people around the globe, the Geneva-based United Nations agency said in an e-mailed statement today. The WHO said last week that production would miss its May forecast because of difficulties growing the virus known as H1N1. “Global manufacturing capacity for influenza vaccines is limited, inadequate and not readily augmented,” according...

By Daniel Martin Doctors across the country believe patients are dying because of blunders by staff at swine flu call centres. Serious illnesses such as meningitis, tonsillitis and pneumonia had been missed by the untrained staff, they said. Thirty-seven per cent of GPs told researchers they have had to pick up the pieces of treating those wrongly told by operators they had swine flu. And three doctors said their patients had died as a result of the errors, amid fears that many more cases have gone unreported. The research by Pulse magazine revealed that 91 per cent of GPs believe Tamiflu should...

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. More than three million doses of swine flu vaccine will be available by the first week of October, a little earlier than had been anticipated, federal health officials announced Friday. But nearly all those 3.4 million doses will be of the FluMist nasal spray type, which is not recommended for pregnant women, people over 50 or those with asthma, heart disease or several other problems, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned. Nonetheless, it will still be possible to vaccinate people in other high-risk groups: health care workers, people caring...

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Health department staffers scrambling to answer 100 calls a day. Harried hospital workers rushing to swab hundreds of sore throats. Out of practice school nurses learning how to give vaccines all over again. City and state health department officials from across the United States say that while the H1N1 swine flu pandemic may be mild in terms of mortality rates, it is killing them in terms of workload. And they are dreading the task of vaccinating tens of millions of people against the new virus beginning in October. Read More…

By Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. health officials have approved vaccines from four drugmakers to help prevent the H1N1 swine flu, ensuring there will be enough to inoculate Americans who want the protection, U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told lawmakers on Tuesday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared vaccines from Sanofi-Aventis SA, CSL Ltd, Medimmune and Novartis AG for the H1N1 strain of influenza, she said. “There will be vaccines for everyone,” Sebelius said at a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. There...

By Colin McCandless Dates, times and locations for seasonal flu clinics have now been scheduled, according to the Macon County health board, which held its regular meeting Sept. 9 at the public health center. Assistant health director Anne Hyder told the board the clinics typically start in mid-October, but they are starting earlier this year because in October the health department will be involved with the novel H1N1 (a.k.a. swine) flu campaign. She said the seasonal clinics will lead them into the H1N1 flu campaign, so they will be prepared when it gets here. Flu shots are recommended for everyone...

The Brown-Lupton Health Center will not receive its full order of seasonal flu vaccinations this fall, but it has ordered enough doses of the H1N1 flu vaccine for each person on campus, a university official said. Don Mills, vice chancellor for student affairs, wrote Monday in a campuswide e-mail that people who are most at risk will be griven priority to receive the limited number of seasonal flu shots. “Those that we know are most at-risk are already in the process of being notified,” Mills said in a telephone interview. “For example, student nurses who need to have a flu shot...

TORONTO – With fears that Canada could be hit by a massive wave of H1N1 influenza cases this fall, nurses across the country are preparing to take their places on the front lines of the pandemic _ and bracing for the worst. For months, provincial and territorial nurses groups have been engaged in pandemic planning with hospitals and government, while readying their members for a possible onslaught of cases that could swamp the system. One of the greatest concerns is that there simply will not be enough nurses to handle a sustained influx of patients, especially those admitted with life-threatening...

by Chris Kelsey, Western Mail BUSINESSES should be prepared for up to half their staff being off work as swine flu returns, according to new advice from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The CIPD and the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) have issued the advice as experts and medical professionals wait to see if the new school term results in a surge in cases this autumn. The Cabinet Office predicts that flu pandemic-related employee absence levels will peak at 12% but the CIPD is warning that absence levels will not be uniform, and the 12% figure does not take into account...

Medical personnel should use them, but not the general public, experts say By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Sept. 3 (HealthDay News) — Because people can catch the new H1N1 swine flu by inhaling the virus, health-care workers who deal with flu patients should wear properly fitted N95 disposable respirator masks, a new report from the Institute of Medicine advises. These masks are not the same as loosely fitted surgical masks. N95 respirators fit tightly around the mouth and nose and have filters that can block about 95 percent of the flu virus, according to the report released...