Swine flu jab available to all

Everybody can take the swine flu jab as the vaccination process enters its final stage today. Children aged six months and older can be inoculated.

The Health Parliamentary Secretariat said the vaccine could be taken from all health centres between 2 and 8 p.m. and from Gozo General Hospital between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. every day until February 6. The secretariat said it would then decide on the course of action to take.

The second batch of 100,000 vaccines was set to arrive tonight. The first batch of 100,000 doses was delivered on December 29. So far, 56,550 persons have been inoculated, well short of the original target to vaccinate 100,000 vulnerable people by January 10.

However, contacted a secretariat spokesman said that over the past weeks people were calling in asking whether they could take the vaccine as yet, which signalled the demand was high.

The spokesman said that so far no deaths connected to the vaccine Malta was using - GlaxoSmithKline Pandremix - had been reported worldwide.

To date, five people have died of swine flu in Malta.