Via The Independent: France calls in army to meet demand for swine flu jab. Excerpt:
French authorities said Saturday they were calling in the army’s health services to meet a surge in demand for vaccinations against swine flu, which has killed 30 people in the country.
Mass vaccination centres opened on November 12 but “since last week, the number of people seeking to be vaccinated against the A(H1N1) virus has been sharply increasing,” the health and interior ministries said in a statement.
“The army’s health services will be called as back-up,” it said.
Medical students and in-house company doctors will also help meet high demand for the vaccination, the statement added.
The ministries said local authorities had been told to extend opening hours and increase capacity to cope with the surge in demand.
Police officials in Paris said Saturday that they would double capacity in each of the French capital’s 12 vaccination centres by “the middle of next week.”
The number of people receiving the jab each day has risen from an average of 1,000 at the start of the campaign to around 4,000 this week, Paris police said in a statement.
