Word: viruses
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Critics are calling it a two-tier health system - one for the politically well connected, another for the hoi polloi. As Germany launched its mass-vaccination program against the H1N1 flu virus on Monday, the government found itself fending off accusations of favoritism because it was offering one vaccine believed to have fewer side effects to civil servants, politicians and soldiers, and another, potentially riskier vaccine to everyone else. The government had hoped that Germans would rush to health clinics to receive vaccinations against the rapidly spreading disease, but now rising anger over the different drugs may cause many people...
...vaccine can't be recommended for pregnant women or young children because it has an increased risk of side effects. Pandemrix has an adjuvant which hasn't been tested sufficiently up until now," Alexander Kekulé, a virologist at the University of Halle, tells TIME. "Celvapan is a whole-virus vaccine, which has fewer side effects than Pandemrix, but it leads more often to fever or local swelling when compared with the normal seasonal-flu vaccine," he adds. Although Kekulé calls the government's handling of the vaccination program a "scandal," he says government officials and soldiers...
...best way to slow the growth of those numbers would be to rapidly manufacture and distribute the new H1N1 vaccine. But that's proven even more difficult than health officials anticipated when the virus first began spreading in the spring. Drug manufacturers have experienced setbacks growing the vaccine - instead of the 120 million doses the CDC had initially hoped to have by the end of October, the real number will likely be closer to 30 million. "Vaccine production is much less predictable than we wish," says Frieden. "We are nowhere near where we thought...
Fortunately, while H1N1 virus has made people a lot of people sick, it hasn't been as deadly as many scientists had initially feared. Even in hard-hit communities, hospitals haven't been overwhelmed. In some parts of the country, the virus may even be waning. States in the Southeast, which experienced spikes in infection when students went back to school in August, are now seeing declines. But pandemics often come in multiple waves of infection, and we may see another spike later in the year, during the colder months of winter - and it could be more severe...
...graphic of how the H1N1 virus works...