Schweinen Grippe Impfstoff

Above translated in english simply means "Swine Flu Vaccine"...I have written the title in Deutsche to create a mystical aura around this blog  :P:P

Anyway, we got our swine flu shots today which are supposed to protect us against this deadly virus which has spread around the world. For the ignorant folks...swine flu is the name given to Type A or H1N1 virus which is a lethal strain of influenza virus.It originated from Mexico and now has spread all over the world. Although, there are not many cases of swine flu in Europe, we took this vaccine because of the travelling we will be doing next month.

The road towards this vaccination has been rocky to say the least. In Germany, there was a raging controversy when the vaccination program first started. The reason of controversy being that the German Government introduced two types of vaccines..... Pandermix which is manufactured by GlaxoSmithkline PLC,that contains an Adjuvant is being given to the general public whereas the German Politicians, government employees and the military is being given Celvapan manufactured by Baxter International and does not have any adjuvant.

On further research, I found out that Adjuvants are the chemical compounds that boost the human body's immune response but there is not much data available on how safe they are esp. on pregnant women and children. No flu vaccines with adjuvants are licensed in the U.S.

Now the question which arose was why the german government was adopting a two-class health policy?....is this vaccine really safe? are there any fatal side effects??.....these questions plagued my mind for days and days.....
 But then I realised that all these controversies aside....We are essentially Indians....and where the German Government has ordered 50 million doses for its people....India still does not have any vaccine with or without adjuvant or even adequate supply of Tamiflu or essential medical assistance for those who contract this virus. While people are dying, our government is more worried about the Babri Masjid Demolition in 1993 and so on.....

So we thought prevention is better than cure and took the shots :)