A nurse prepares doses of H1N1 vaccine at the Balboa Park Community Center in Encino, California October 23, 2009. Los Angeles County officials opened the first public health clinic there for patients in the high priority group with special health needs. Picture taken October 23, 2009. ©Reuters

BEIJING, Nov. 26 — There’s no evidence that the A/H1N1 flu vaccine can cause any serious side effects, said U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a report released on Wednesday.

The report was CDC’s first report on the safety of the vaccine.

The report said the U.S. government has been tracking the safety of the A/H1N1 flu

vaccine since October, and about 22 million Americans have been inoculated with the vaccine by mid-November.

Among the inoculators there were about 3,200 reports of possible side effects, the vast majority for minor things like soreness or swelling from the shot. No serious problem has been found.

The A/H1N1 flu vaccine is basically the same as the regular winter flu vaccine, said the report.

“The vaccine data so far really suggests this is a safe vaccine,” Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said at a press conference Wednesday.

The A/H1N1 influenza has sickened an estimated 22 million Americans, hospitalized about 98,000 and killed 4,000 since it was first identified in April. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/26/content_12541662.htm

The study, published online on the Journal of the American Medical Association, was conducted during the first phase of infection between March 18 and June 1 in Mexico and April 16 through August 12 in Canada.

The study showed that out of 899 people admitted to six Mexican hospitals with confirmed or probable A/H1N1 infections during the period studied, the median age of the 58 critically ill patients was 44 years old.

The Canadian A/H1N1 patients’ average age in the studied period was 32.3 years old, with 50 people (29.8 percent) under the age of 18, according to the study.

The study concluded that the A/H1N1 influenza caused serious illness predominantly in young patients with few major underlying diseases.

At least 4,525 people have died from A/H1N1 infections since April and there have been at least 378,223 laboratory-confirmed cases, the World Health Organization said Friday. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-10/13/content_12222710.htm

More than 20 countries and overseas territories have had their first lab-confirmed A/H1N1 flu cases, according to the snapshot published by the WHO on Monday.

These countries and territories include holiday destinations such as the Seychelles, Turks and Caicos, St. Kitts and Nevis, Netherlands Antilles, Belize and France’s Reunion Island, as well as isolated spots such as Tonga and American Samoa in the Pacific and the Solomon Islands in the Indian Ocean.

Afghanistan and Sudan have also had their first confirmed infections in recent days.

The A/H1N1 flu has caused a total of 816 deaths worldwide, according to the WHO’s latest tally on Monday.

But the total number of people infected with H1N1 flu is not known, as countries are no longer required to test and report individual cases. 

On Xinhua Web site: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/28/content_11785474.htm