Swine flu

Health officials announced that schoolchildren caught the virus either while staying at a youth hostel in Germany during a school trip or from a child who had apparently been infected at an airport.

Germany's vaccine regulator called on manufacturers to begin producing a vaccine against the virus immediately, the day after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a A(H1N1) pandemic.

A spokeswoman for the Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) near Frankfurt said both of Germany's vaccine factories had completed their production runs of the annual influenza vaccine issued every autumn, and should now start making the swine-flu vaccine.

The two companies, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, had already received from the WHO the seed vaccine, containing a weak version of the virus, she said. But side-effects tests on the vaccine are still taking place and the vaccine will not be marketed until they are complete.

In Dusseldorf, the Japanese consulate-general in the city said it was delivering key medicines to the homes of the Japanese expatriate community, which numbers 7,600 people in the area.

Heiko Schneitler, head of the Dusseldorf Health Office, said most of the cases were not severe, but one child had required hospital treatment. Some 50 teachers and 560 students are registered at the school.

An annual Japanese festival went ahead in Dusseldorf Saturday, with more than 850 performers demonstrating traditional and contemporary Japanese culture to the city's German residents.

nrt/dpa/AFP/AP
Editor: Andreas Illmer