ATLANTA – Health officials say it will likely take until Thanksgiving before a significant number of Americans who get the swine flu vaccine are protected.
Roughly 50 million doses of vaccine are expected to be available by mid-October. But health officials say most people will need two shots, spaced three weeks apart, and that it will take a week or two after the second dose before immunity kicks in. That's five or six weeks in all.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, speaking in Atlanta, said that means it will take until Thanksgiving or so before large numbers of Americans are fully immunized.
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