Pretoria, 27 Aug-(ANA)-South Africa has no choice but to develop its own H1N1 flu vaccine, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has said citing concerns treatment will not be available to poorer nations.
"South Africa has arrived at a situation where we have no option but to start developing our own vaccine capacity, not only for H1N1, but generally," Motsoaledi told parliament.
"The disturbing feature about today's world... has been expressed by the minister of health for Cambodia... who noted that the developed world, after producing the vaccine, may want to cover their own population first before thinking about the developing world," Motsoaledi said.
South Africa does have a growing vaccine industry, but is considered by experts to be unlikely to be able to produce a swine flu vaccine any time soon.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared swine flu a pandemic in June. It has killed some 1,800 people after spreading to nearly 180 countries, 25 of them in Africa. (ANA)
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