New flu 'unstoppable', WHO says, calls for vaccine
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Saying the new H1N1 virus is "unstoppable", the World Health Organization gave drug makers a full go-ahead to manufacture vaccines against the pandemic influenza strain on Monday and said healthcare workers should be the first to get one.
Every country will need to vaccinate citizens against the swine flu virus and must choose who else would get priority after nurses, doctors and technicians, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research.
Several reports showed the new virus attacks people differently than seasonal flu -- affecting younger people, the severely obese and seemingly healthy adults, and causing disease deep in the lungs.
Kieny briefed reporters on the findings of the WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization, or SAGE. "The committee recognized that the H1N1 pandemic ... is unstoppable and therefore that all...