Australia: New wave of swine flu expected early 2010
Australia: New wave of swine flu expected early 2010 By Charmaine Kane
Posted 9 hours 33 minutes ago
Updated 9 hours 25 minutes ago
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009 ... 762173.htm Queensland's Chief Health Officer Dr Jeanette Young says she expects the second wave of the swine flu pandemic to hit the state in February or March next year.
She told a medical conference on the Gold Coast today the disease caused a thousand deaths in the northern hemisphere last week but Australia's risk is lower because the population is much smaller.
She says a new vaccine offers safe, effective protection but only 10 per cent of Queenslanders have been immunised so far.
"We know through a lot of extensive modelling that has been done that if we can get 40 per cent of the population immunised then we will significantly reduce the impact," Dr Young said.
"Otherwise we will see a very similar flu season to what we saw last year with about the same morbidity, the same mortality and the same admissions to hospitals and ICU."
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