H1N1
NEW DELHI — India is “most likely” to administer imported swine flu vaccine to the high-risk groups from next week, a senior health ministry official said March 10.
"Most likely, we will start the vaccination next week," said V.M. Katoch, the secretary of health research in ministry of health and family welfare.
Katoch said multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur has already completed its bridge study and the data has been given to a health ministry committee for analysis.
"The last set of data from Sanofi Pasteur’s bridge study in India came to us Feb. 28,” Katoch told the Deccan Herald of Bangalore.
The data is now with a government committee, which is analyzing it.
"We expect the analysis to end in a few days and vaccination most likely to start the coming week," he said, adding that the high-risk groups including physicians and paramedics will be vaccinated first.
India has already procured 1.5 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine from Sanofi Pasteur. But authorities had asked the company to conduct a bridge human trial in India to test if it suits the Indian population.
Since the country reported its first H1N1 case in May, more than 1,300 people have died because of the virus and more than 30,000 have been infected by it.
