The country has requested from the World Health Organization enough vaccine to immunize 10 per cent of the population from the pandemic flu, said Dr. Justin Wane, who heads the Ministry of Health’s H1N1 flu response team.
“We will identify those people who will receive the vaccine,” Wane said, adding that the guidelines should be made public within the next week.
Through consultations with the World Heath Organization (WHO), Rwanda is also identifying factors that make a person at high risk of becoming severely sick from H1N1 flu.
That means people with conditions like diabetes and respiratory illnesses like TB would probably be among the first to be vaccinated, said Wane.
Healthcare workers, who have an increased chance of coming in contact with an infected person, would also probably be eligible for the vaccine, he added.
The H1N1 vaccine was developed following the emergence of H1N1 influenza in Mexico last April.
In September, nine countries – the United States, Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom – promised to share their H1N1 vaccine supply with developing countries.
Pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Pasteur have also pledged to provide the WHO with 150 million doses of the vaccine for distribution to poorer countries.
The WHO will distribute to developing countries enough vaccine for 10 per cent of their populations.
However, the producing countries have not been able to avail sufficient doses for their own internal use. In August, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) said instead of 120 million doses by mid-October, there would only be 45 million doses available, with another 20 million arriving each week after that.
The CDC says the single biggest obstacle to massive production of the vaccines has been the H1N1 virus itself. It has been slow to grow inside eggs – the key factor in creating an effective vaccine, the agency said.
According to statistics provided here by the Ministry of Health, there have been 127 confirmed cases of pandemic flu in Rwanda.
Of those, 108 have recovered after completing treatment using the antiviral Tamiflu. Another three patients have completed treatments but not yet made a full recovery.
All of the cases have been considered mild.