As the US administration wrestles with health-care reform, there was some good health news for a member of the team in the past few days: Help is on the way for the swine flu.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said upwards of 50 million doses of a new vaccine for the H1N1 virus will be available in mid-October, earlier than expected, with millions more doses quickly following.The initial vaccines will go to what Sebelius calls "priority populations" -- caregivers, young people ages 6 to 24, hospital workers, pregnant women and some seniors. They add up to about 160 million people, or nearly half the U.S. population.
"The clinical trials have shown that the vaccine is effective in a single dose and effective within 10 days," she said in a Voices of Power video interview. "We should have adults immunized a lot faster than we had feared. We were thinking Thanksgiving might be the worry window, and it may be a lot sooner than that."
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