| ■ As kids' swine flu deaths spike, vaccine reaches public | 2009.10.10 |
| SILVER SPRING, Maryland (AFP) - Amid warnings that child deaths from swine flu are spiking, toddler Bronwen English nervously clutched her teddy bear and waited to be innoculated against the H1N1 virus Friday. "She's in an age group that has seen a much higher proportion of deaths and complications from H1N1 flu. And her mother's pregnant, so we are very concerned about it coming into the house," Bronwen's father Chad told AFP just as his daughter's anguish at being vaccinated got the better of her and spilled over into tears and sobs. Bronwen and her dad were among hundreds who had turned up at a nondescript clinic in this Washington suburb to be innoculated against swine flu on the first day the vaccine was made available to the general public in Maryland as part of a massive nationwide vaccination campaign. As Bronwen waited to be vaccinated, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that child deaths from swine flu were 'shooting up" in the United States, with 19 deaths from influenza reported in recent days. "We're now up to 76 children having died from the 2009 H1N1 virus," said Anne Schuchat, a senior official at the CDC. |