RP gets 1st batch of A(H1N1) vaccines.

After a long months of wait RP gets 1st batch of A(H1N1) vaccines. Poor Philippines! tsk tsk tsk..

The Philippines received its first batch of A(H1N1) vaccines from the World Health Organization (WHO) Thursday morning, Malacañang said.

A Palace statement said that the WHO turned over the influenza vaccines to the Philippine government during a ceremony at Bahay Pangarap in Malacañang.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo received the vaccines from Dr. Soe-Nyunt-U, WHO country representative to the Philippines, the statement said.

The donation was made under a memorandum of agreement signed by WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan and Health Secretary Francisco Duque III last Nov. 25.

WHO will supply the country's need for the flu vaccines manufactured by CSL Limited, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals SA, Green Cross Corporation, MedImmune LLC, Novartis AG and Sanofi Pasteur SA.

The Philippines is the first country to receive such a donation, the statement noted.

Government is undertaking preemptive moves for a possible second wave of A(H1N1) infections, even as health officials reassured the public there is no sign of the A(H1N1) virus growing nastier.

Last month, Duque said his department is in constant communication with the WHO, and there is no sign of a more severe strain of the A(H1N1) virus.

“We are in constant contact with WHO. There is no evidence up to now of a nastier strain of the AH1N1 virus. So our mitigation and containment measures will remain," Duque said in a radio interview then.

Duque reiterated there is no cause for alarm as far as A(H1N1) is concerned even if the virus is already in the Philippines, saying it is already considered a pandemic.

Besides, he said, more than 99 percent of A(H1N1) cases in the Philippines had recovered, with the 30 who died having suffered from other diseases like heart and liver disease.

In August 5, 2009, the WHO reported that 1,154 have died since the virus emerged in April.

More than 300 of the new deaths were in the Americas, bringing the death toll in that region to 1,008 since the virus first emerged in Mexico and the United States, and developed into the global epidemic, the WHO said.

It added that is no evidence that the new virus is mutating into a more dangerous form.