It's unknown whether the swine flu virus will mutate to a more deadly strain in the coming year, but the federal government is preparing for the worst in case the pandemic continues to spread. At yesterday's flu summit at the National Institutes of Health, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius revealed the government's provisions for a possible swine flu emergency. The campaign to combat the swine flu is different from the strategy usually employed against the seasonal flu. One reason is that the swine flu appears to be most deadly to children and young adults, while the seasonal flu traditionally is most fatal to the elderly. Therefore,
if mass vaccination becomes necessary, school-aged children will be among the first to be immunized; this likely will occur at school, in a manner reminiscent of the 1950s polio vaccination campaign.
"We are likely to have a different target population," Sebelius said. ...
