US health officials warned on Friday that deliveries of swine flu vaccine were likely to be delayed even as the number of influenza deaths climbs, with children hit particularly hard.
Eleven more children were reported to have died of flu in a single week, 10 of them from swine flu, bringing the number of pediatric deaths from A(H1N1) flu since April to 86, Anne Schuchat, a senior official at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters.
In the worst of the past three flu seasons in the US, which usually run from August to March, 88 children died.
As of mid-week, 11.4 million doses of A(H1N1) vaccine were available and around 8 million had been ordered by the states.
Inoculation clinics got under way in several US states last week, targeting children, health care workers, people who work with infants and young, healthy adults.
Long lines have been reported outside the clinics, as parents rushed to get their children — one of the most at-risk groups — inoculated against swine flu.
“About half the deaths we’ve seen in children since Sept. 1 have occurred in teens between the ages of 12 and 17,” Schuchat said, warning that deaths of older children from swine flu were likely to increase as the season progresses.
Overall, the number of deaths in the US from flu has leapt above the “epidemic threshold,” and widespread disease from influenza has been reported in 41 of the 50 states. The remainder of the states are seeing higher-than-average rates of illness, Schuchat said.
“It’s unprecedented for this time of year to have the whole country seeing such high levels of activity,” Schuchat said.
As deaths rose and flu spread across the US, however, A(H1N1) vaccine manufacturers have warned of slow-downs in production, Schuchat said.
“It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to make the estimates we had projected by the end of this month,” she said, scaling back earlier projections of 40 million doses of vaccine by the end of this month to between 28 million and 30 million.
Meanwhile, pigs in Minnesota may have tested positive for the A(H1N1) virus in a preliminary test, which would be the first US cases in swine, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said on Friday.
The officials said further tests were needed to confirm that the pigs had been infected with A(H1N1), also known as the swine flu virus. The pigs did not exhibit signs of sickness and may have been infected with the virus by a group of children carrying it, they said.
Samples from the pigs that may have tested positive were collected at the Minnesota State Fair between Aug. 26 and Sept. 1. USDA officials did not say how many pigs might have tested positive.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement that testing was under way and results should be available in a matter of days.
He said the USDA was working with the federal CDC and his agency’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories would conduct tests to confirm the results.
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