China has detected swine flu cases that are similar to the strain reported in the US and Mexico, said the Chinese health ministry has said.
China reported 126 cases of the flu caused by the H1N1 virus in 13 provinces, the authorities said today in a Beijing press conference.
Up to 60 of the patients in China have recovered and were released from hospital while the remainder are still being treated.
Health officials have detected cases that were caused by viruses introduced from abroad but there are also cases that have developed locally, similar in nature to the cases in North America.
Minister for Health Mary Harney yesterday said she was satisfied the Irish health service was sufficiently prepared to deal with the virus, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the first flu pandemic in its member countries for 40 years.
The H1N1 strain has spread widely, with 28,774 infections confirmed in 74 countries to date, including 144 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally. Although the strain seems mild at present, health officials are worried it might return in a more virulent form in the northern hemisphere winter.
Meanwhile pharmaceutical company Novartis AG said today it expects a vaccine for the virus to be available by the autumn after it produced the first batch for testing ahead of schedule.
The vaccine will enter clinical trials next month, the Swiss drugmaker said.
Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and Solvay all obtained the influenza A (H1N1) seed virus in recent weeks and aim to have a vaccine ready ahead of the northern hemisphere flu season.
The WHO has estimated vaccine makers could produce up to 4.9 billion pandemic flu shots a year in a best-case scenario, leaving some of the world's 6.5 billion population unprotected, particularly if more than one injection was needed to gain immunity.
Novartis said first results with the H1N1 wild type strain showed it was quicker to make the vaccine through cell-based than through egg-based production, and it had completed its first batch weeks earlier than expected.
Its cell-culture vaccine plant in Marburg, Germany had the potential to produce millions of doses per week, but it was difficult to predict output capacity for now.
Spokesman Eric Althoff said Novartis should have the vaccine ready in September or October.
He was unsure if other companies had completed the first stage of the production process. Glaxo said on Friday it would be able to meet advance purchase commitments for 150 to 180 million doses, and the 50 million it donated to the WHO for developing countries.