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27. 01. 10. - 16:00

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27. 01. 10. - 16:00

Health Ministry says swine flu pandemic winding down

The Health Ministry claimed today (Weds) the swine flu pandemic was on the wane in Austria after it was reported that only 17 patients were admitted to hospital with the illness in the past week.

Officials said the figures had dropped from 92 who were admitted during the last week of December.

The number of new cases in Vienna fell to 7,400 in the past week from 10,400 in the previous week, the ministry said.

Announcing that it would no longer count the number of swine flu cases in Austria, the ministry reported the A(H1N1) virus that causes swine flu had been the only one detected in flu patients.

The 1,106 people who were vaccinated against swine flu last week raised the total number of those vaccinated to 274,993. Around 1.1 million doses of swine flu vaccine are available in Austria.

European health experts said last week that Austrians should be given an extra dose of swine flu vaccine.

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) recommended that people receive two doses of Baxter’s Celvapan swine flu vaccine – the vaccine used in Austria - rather than just one following examinations of the drug.

But the agency warned that its recommendation was not final and it would ask Baxter for more analyses of immune-system reaction to its vaccine.

Austrian Times

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