Mexican official: A/H1N1 vaccine offers only 60% protection

The million doses of vaccine against A/H1N1 flu that Mexican authorities will begin applying in December will only have 60 percent effectiveness, a top health ministry official told Mexican media on Monday.

Those vaccinated will have to maintain hand washing and what the government called "polite sneezing," said Alejandro Macias Fernandez, who heads the Health Ministry's committee for fighting A/H1N1 flu.

He also recommended the cleaning of shared objects and visits to doctors at the first sign of illness.

"The vaccine is not a panacea. It is one more mitigation strategy out of a list that includes washing hands, covering with the forearm when coughing or sneezing, avoiding spitting and using a handkerchief," he said.

Mexico was the first nation to suffer an outbreak of A/H1N1 flu, triggering a closure of all government offices, schools and all businesses. The first round of infections, in Mexico City, has died down, but there have been rounds of infections in the southern Mexico state of Yucatan and in the northern state of Nuevo Leon since then.

A total of 354 people have now died of the flu, out of 52,067 confirmed cases in the country.

Those aged from 10 to 19 are the most likely to catch the disease, representing more than 16,000 of the infected, but those aged from 30 to 39 are the most likely to die, representing 80 percent of the deaths.

Mexico has 185,000 hospital beds, of which around 15,000 are set aside for flu patients to prepare for possible emergencies in the upcoming months.

Macias said Mexico has boosted training for intensive care workers and increased the number of respirators, monitors and drugs available to hospitals to avoid bottlenecks.

Flu spreads more quickly in winter which runs from November to March in Mexico.

Source: Xinhua