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ATLANTA (Reuters) – Nearly half the U.S. population should be vaccinated against the H1N1 strain of influenza, but pregnant women and workers in the field of health debiesen be the first to receive doses, agreed on Wednesday U.S. health advisers.

Up to 160 million doses of vaccine will be available for the start of the immunization campaign scheduled for mid-October.

The Advisory Panel on Immunization Practices (ACIP, for its acronym in English) recommended that state health officials and local authorities to prepare to vaccinate 150 million people.

Probably each person would need two doses of vaccine, and officials said it was unclear exactly how many vaccines are available or when.

The main message is that the population (priority to be vaccinated) is halved. And it is the younger half of the population as well as health care workers, said Kathy Neuzil, chair of the working group of the ACIP influenza.

The group almost unanimously accepted the advice of the Centers for Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English). The Department of Human Services almost always follows the advice of the committee.

The recommendations indicated that pregnant women, people who deal with babies and health workers being the first debiesen protected against the virus -a total of nearly 41 million people, in case you do not have enough vaccines available.

People at risk for serious complications if sick with the strain of influenza would be Next on the list and then a healthy young adults between 19 to 24 years, the panel said.

Panelists commented that young adults debiesen be a priority because they are more likely to be infected and tend to work in places that would accelerate the spread of influenza.

They penetrate in our society work to the level of service, work at the basic level, so there will be a lot of transmission from these people, said the reunion Dr. Carol Baker of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, a member of the panel.

PREGNANT WOMEN AT RISK

Pregnant women are at particular risk for the new strain and vaccine also protects their newborns, the panelsaid Dr. Anthony Fiore of the CDC.

A CDC report released on Wednesday showed that this group was four times more likely to have another serious illness or death resulting from infection with H1N1.

Five companies are developing vaccines against the H1N1 strain of influenza for U.S. market: AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, the Australian CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA.

Although it is unclear how many doses of vaccine available of immediate United States would need 600 million to immunize all.

The panel was struggling to maintain a balance between getting limited supplies of vaccines for people in need of more urgent and ensure there is enough demand for them.

In the past, influenza vaccines have been discarded stationary at the end of flu season because people lose interest in being immunized.

The United States government initially will receive 20 million doses of vaccine against the new H1N1 pandemic influenza and be ready to begin an immunization campaign in October, reported Robin Robinson, Department of Health and Human Services United States .

Data from clinical trials on the new vaccine, which has just begun, will not be available until late September, officials noted during the meeting.

The current H1N1 influenza is so widespread that the WHO no longer count individual cases. Health experts fear it could get worse, especially when the flu season begins in the northern hemisphere, in the fall.

Previous studies had suggested that obese people could be at high risk for severe complications the H1N1 virus, but Fiore said other research had not confirmed this.

Fiore noted that the working assumption was that people would need two doses of vaccine to be fully protected, but also clinical trials were addressing this issue.

(Writing by Maggie Fox in Washington and Matthew Bigg; in Spanish Edited by Ana Laura Mitidieri)