NOVO-OGARYOVO, August 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will start to produce a vaccine against the swine flu virus in October 2009, to be administered to around 40 million people by next March, the country's chief sanitary official said on Friday.
As of August 21, 187 people have been diagnosed with the A/H1N1 swine flu in Russia. Five people who arrived from countries hit by swine flu pandemics were quarantined on Monday.
"The vaccine... is currently undergoing clinical trials. We will start production in October," Gennady Onishchenko said during a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
According to First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, Russia will allocate 4 billion rubles ($125 million) in 2009-2010 to developing the vaccine.
According to World Health Organization data, the global number of swine flu cases so far is 182,166, of which 1,799 have been fatal.
