Norway recommends swine flu shots nationwide
Norway’s Health Ministry has recommended that everyone in Norway should be vaccinated against swine flu. There has been an upturn in Swine flu cases in Norway lately.
The new Health Minister Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen (former Defence Minister) announced Oct. 23 that the government is recommending that Norway’s entire population, except children under 6 and pregnant women in the first trimester, receive the vaccine. Strøm-Erichsen said local clinics and doctors’ offices all over Norway will boost their capacity to offer vaccinations. It will be available to the general public by mid-November.
Public health authorities estimate “more than 100,000 Norwegians” are or have been infected this year. On Friday came news that a two-year-old boy in Vest-Agder, southern Norway, had died after being diagnosed with swine flu. He is the tenth person to have died from the virus so far in Norway.
Norway began vaccinating people in risk groups-such as those with chronic lung diseases-this week.
