London: The World Health Organization
plans to start shipping swine flu vaccine to Azerbaijan,
Afghanistan and Mongolia in the next few weeks, flu chief
Keiji Fukuda said today.
Another 35 developing countries are in line to get the
vaccine soon. The UN health agency has prioritised sending the
shots to northern hemisphere countries first, which are being
hit harder by swine flu than countries in the southern
hemisphere.
The agency had hoped to send the vaccine earlier, but
the effort has been delayed by manufacturing problems and
bureaucracy.
When WHO declared swine flu to be a pandemic, or
global outbreak, in June, it warned the virus could have a
devastating impact in countries across Africa with high
numbers of people with health problems like malnutrition,
AIDS, and malaria.
Most people who catch swine flu only have mild
symptoms like a fever or cough and recover without needing
medical treatment.
WHO has a stockpile of about 180 million swine flu
shots, donated by six drug makers and a dozen countries.
PTI