Children serious with H1N1

NINTEEN children with H1N1 flu are in a serious but stable condition at the Makarios Hospital in Nicosia, it emerged yesterday.
The children are being held for treatment and observation and are said not to be in danger. One however, was in the intensive care unit of the hospital until early yesterday afternoon, when his condition stabilised and he was moved back to the general ward.
His case was complicated due to a secondary infection in the lower respiratory system but was not critical in the end.
The Makarios Hospital is currently offering immunizations only to children aged between 6 months and 15 years and to pregnant women.
The Health Services said yesterday there had been a greatly increased uptake of the H1N1 vaccine for the second day running since it was made available to people outside the 15-45 age range on Wednesday.
Around 100 people were vaccinated at the Aglandjia health centre by lunchtime yesterday.  The hospitals are not releasing figures on precisely how many people have been vaccinated as they were “collating their numbers ”and will release greater details either tomorrow or in the next few days.
The two cases of H1N1 infection in Cyprus which are critical are those of a 46-year-old woman in Limassol, and a baby in Nicosia which has had health complications since birth.
At the moment immunization is only being offered to ‘groups at high risk of infection’. 
“We are starting from those who have a greater need and passing slowly, slowly to the other groups in society.” said Chrystalla Hadjianastasiou, the Director of the Health Ministry committee in charge of H1N1.
According to Hadjianastasiou, the health services will have 400, 000 vaccines by the first quarter of 2010, enough for 50 per cent of the population.  Asked when a general immunization programme for all members of the population would begin Hadjianastasiou said. “Let’s have a little patience and see how the vaccinations currently underway go, and then we’ll see.”
According to a status update by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) released to the public yesterday there are no significant side-effects from the flu vaccines currently in use by national health services. 
“The benefit/risk balance of the pandemic vaccines and antivirals used for the current H1N1 influenza pandemic continues to be positive. To date, no unexpected serious safety issues have been identified. The most frequent adverse reactions that have been reported are non-serious and as expected.” said the EMEA.
This conclusion relates to the vaccines classified by the EMEA as ‘centrally authorised pandemic medicines’, namely Celvapan, Focetria and Pandemrix.  The EMEA’s conclusion of no significant side-effects also applies to the antiviral drug Tamiflu.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.