THE FIRST 30,000 doses of pandemic flu vaccine for swine flu are expected to arrive in the State next week.
Dr Kevin Kelleher, assistant national director of health protection with the Health Service Executive (HSE), confirmed the news at a press briefing in Dublin last evening, where new figures were presented showing rates of swine flu infection in the community here remain relatively stable.
The first batch of vaccines are being supplied by the pharmaceutical firm Baxter, while supplies from GlaxoSmithKline are expected to arrive around the end of next month.
Baxter has already delivered 200,000 doses of the swine flu vaccine for use in the UK, it was confirmed yesterday.
The vaccines cannot be used until they are licensed, which is expected to take a number of weeks.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health has confirmed a further 13 people were hospitalised with swine flu in the past week.
Its chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, said 75 people had been hospitalised to date with pandemic H1N1 flu, up from 62 a week ago.
He said 40 per cent of those hospitalised to date have had an underlying condition that could put them at increased risk of complications.
Overall, he said, 21 people remain in hospital and four remain in intensive care.
However, he stressed that rates of infection were stable. In the seven days up to last Sunday, the GP consultation rate for influenza-like illness decreased to 33.4 per 100,000 people, from a rate of 38.8 a week earlier.
Some might translate this latest rate into around 1,500 cases a week, but Dr Holohan said in scientific terms this probably was not precisely accurate.
“We are seeing a pretty sustained low level of infection in the population over the last number of weeks that’s quite stable,” he said.
Dr Kelleher also said detailed information had been sent to schools on swine flu.
The basic message for schools, he said, was about having students cover their nose and mouth with a tissue when coughing and sneezing, and washing their hands afterwards. Schools should also clean hard surfaces where the virus could linger, such as table tops and door handles, regularly.
To date, there have been 713 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu in the Republic, and two deaths.
Some 80 per cent of laboratory-confirmed cases have been in people under the age of 35 years.
There have been 27 swine flu outbreaks, eight of which have occurred within educational settings. There was also one in a creche.