One dose is enough: Swedish health officials

However, the Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket) and the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) still recommend that children and people with diminished immune systems and other risk factors should receive two doses.

The recommendations come following news that health authorities are expected to decide within the next two weeks whether children between six-months- and three-years-old should also be vaccinated.

At the same time, Swedish health services are straining to cope with the increasing pressure from a public hungry for more information about the swine flu and how to get vaccinated.

“We’ve gotten signals from several county councils that there is very, very high demand right now. For example, in Malmö there was an hour wait to get in,” said Lars-Olof Hensjö of the medical advising service Sjukvårdsrådgivningen, to the TT news agency.

Sjukvårdsrådgivningen, which operates the 1177 phone service and corresponding 1177.se website, has received many a number of inquiries from the concerned parents of small children, according to Hensjö.

“Because the illness is of such a nature that it affects children and young people to a greater extent, it’s natural that the number of calls increases at a time like this,” he said.