Swine Flu indigenous Vaccine in India by April: Health Minister

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad reported that an indigenous vaccine for swine flu will be made available to Indian public by April as the panic continues to grip the country with 3 new cases of swine flu deaths taking the total number of fatalities to 1243.

While western countries especially Europe has already started vaccination for their citizens the unavailability of even a common flu vaccine has sent Indian medical fraternity into frenzy and pharmaceutical companies in an overdrive to deliver vaccine at the earliest.

Deaths from swine flu and new swine flu cases are continuous surfacing in India and it won’t be long before swine flu will be declared as a pandemic. With the swine deaths already crossing the 1000 mark in India, two fresh swine flu fatalities were reported from Gujarat and 1 from Maharashtra today taking the total number of swine flu toll to 1243.

Maharashtra has been the worst affected state in the country with 320 people losing their battle to swine flu with Gujarat being the close second reporting 245 HINI deaths. 46 fresh cases of swine flu have also been reported in India.

With flu season ending in March and the HINI vaccine to be administered before the flu season, people are still skeptical about the actual impact of this vaccine. Also as it is still under testing phase one can only speculate whether the drug will be made available in April. With total number of swine flu cases that has been detected reaching the figure of 28,297 one can only pray for the earlier release of swine flu vaccine which can bring down H1N1 deaths.