WHO plays down swine flu vaccine hopes
Updated on 15 July 2009
A swine flu remedy may be months away than originally claimed as the World Health Organisation warns that "a vaccine available is not a vaccine proved safe."
WHO director general Dr Margaret Chan told today's edition of the Guardian newspaper: "There's no vaccine.
"One should be available soon, in August. But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that has been proven safe.
"Clinical trial data will not be available for another two to three months."
Her comments came as the chief medical Officer for england, Sir Liam Donaldson, said it was "too early to say" whether a death rate of one in 200, as suggested by some experts, was accurate.
Dr Chan cast doubt on Health Secretary Andy Burnham's claim that the first vaccine stocks could be expected to arrive next month.
Mr Burnham has said Britain is at the "front of the queue" for supplies of the vaccine and would start to receive the first in August.
Speaking at a press conference at the beginning of the month the health secretary said "We are well served by our advanced purchase agreement of vaccine...vaccine will begin to arrive as of next month and we should take delivery of 60 million doses by the end of the year."
But Dr Alan Hay, director of the WHO's London-based World Influenza Centre, told the newspaper Mr Burnham had been "a bit optimistic" about the arrival of the vaccine.
He said experts had expected a short series of outbreaks to peter out before reappearing in the autumn or winter and had been "a little surprised" by the degree of spread of the virus.
The number of UK deaths linked to the virus now stands at 17.
NHS Direct has dealt with more than 198,000 calls about swine flu since April 27.
The first British patient without underlying health problems died on Friday after contracting swine flu. The patient, from Essex, died in Basildon.
Nearly 10,000 Britons have been confirmed with swine flu but hundreds of thousands more are thought to have the virus.
The number of cases is now being estimated as the numbers rise too high for individual patients to be swabbed and counted.
