Everyone be Vaccinated against Swine Flu

The World Health Organization said the new H1N1 virus is "unstoppable". It gave drug makers a full go-ahead to manufacture vaccines against the pandemic influenza strain on Monday and said healthcare workers should be the first to get one.

Photo: Everyone be Vaccinated against Swine Flu

Every country will need to vaccinate citizens against the swine flu virus and must choose who else would get priority after nurses, doctors and technicians, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, WHO director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile Health officials have urged the public not to panic despite the latest deaths.

Prof Steve Field, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said his members had been "working with the government on robust flu pandemic plans for a number of years".

"We are confident that the systems we have in place will cope well with the current pandemic," he said, BBC News reports.

The U.S. federal government will spend $884 million to buy more ingredients to make an H1N1 swine flu vaccine, the Health and Human Services department said on Monday.

Drug makers Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and AstraZeneca unit MedImmune will get the money under existing contracts, HHS said in a statement.

HHS has already committed $649 million to buy vaccine made using the H1N1 swine flu virus, plus $283 million to buy adjuvants - ingredients that help boost the immune system and make the vaccine work better.

"The action we are taking today will provide flexibility in a future immunization program, if a program is recommended," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement, Reuters reports.