IN ADVANCE MAGAZINE: "H1N1 vaccine: authorities say "get it" but many of the public are doubtful"
With the flu season now upon us, controversy swirls around the H1N1 vaccination, with half the population or more in some countries, including health care professionals, refusing to take it, and many questioning its safety, its efficacy and the need for it. In the United States, government forecasts of how much vaccine would be available for the public at this time have proven massively inaccurate, causing many to doubt the government's ability to handle an epidemic, should one develop. A great deal of misinformation about who should get the vaccine and what the side effects could be adds to the general sense of confusion. But the flu is here and it's not going away anytime soon.
In Canada, Saskatchewan received its first supplies today, just as a new outbreak of the flu hit the southeastern part of the province. Twenty people in the Sun Country Health Region are confirmed to have the swine flu virus. So far, five people have died from the virus in Saskatchewan.
In Europe the flu is spreading and claiming more fatalities, with the global death toll now approaching 5,000. Most of these fatalities (3,539) have been in the Americas, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), but as winter approaches in the North, countries like the Netherlands are seeing greater numbers of people infected with the flu virus.
Britain's new H1N1 cases shot from 27,000 to 53,000 in just a week, making it the worst-hit country in Europe... READ MORE>>
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