Mexico City, Nov 24 (EFE) Mexico has received the first batch of 865,000 doses of vaccine against the swine flu virus, a minister has said.
Mexico, where the swine flu outbreak began, to date has registered 573 deaths and 64,322 infections.

“This vaccine is going to be monitored by (state-owned) Laboratorios de Biologicos y Reactivos de Mexico,” Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova told EFE Monday.

He said that the vaccine is the same one that is being administered in the US, Canada, Spain, France and Britain.

Before being distributed, the vaccine will be reviewed this week by federal inspectors, he said.

Cordova said that authorities already have “a distribution programme to the different institutions with the two priority groups that are going to be vaccinated in mind, who are health care personnel and pregnant women”.

On Dec 7, “it is very probable” that another 650,000 doses of the vaccine will arrive in Mexico, and around Dec 20 another batch will arrive that will bring the total delivered to Mexico to seven million doses, the minister added.

In mid-January, 18 million more doses will be received, and it is hoped to be able to administer it to “the entire general population”, after the higher-risk groups are attended to.

Mexico expects by February 2010 to have received a total of 30 million doses of the flu vaccine from the Sanofi Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline labs.

Authorities are forecasting a resurgence of the epidemic between mid-December and the end of January.