Serbian authorities signed a contract on Friday with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis to buy three million doses of swine flu vaccine, Tanjug news agency reported.
The first 500,000 vaccines will arrive by early December, while the rest willd be delivered in two batches between January and March, Tanjug reported.
Babies, pregnant women, the elderly and chronic disease patients will have priority for the inoculations followed by health care and public services workers.
Serbia, which declared a swine flu epidemic on Wednesday, has reported nine deaths linked to the flu and 279 confirmed infections with the A/H1N1 virus. But the actual number of flu cases is feared to be much higher, health officials said.
an/cw
Health-flu-Serbia-Novartis
AFP 131158 GMT 11 09
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