Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K., Germany and Ireland will begin immunizing their residents against swine flu in the next two weeks.

The U.K. kicks off its swine flu vaccination campaign today when it offers the shot to about 2 million health- and social- care workers and hospital patients at high risk of contracting the illness, Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson said. Family doctors will begin inoculating as many as 9.5 million other people in priority groups on Oct. 26, he said.

“This is the first pandemic for which we have had vaccine to protect people,” Donaldson said in an e-mailed statement.

More than 399,000 people worldwide have contracted laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu and more than 4,700 people have died from the illness since it was first identified in Mexico and the U.S. in April, the Geneva-based World Health Organization said on Oct. 16. A total of 228 deaths have been reported in Europe since April, according to the Stockholm-based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

France started immunizing health-care workers against swine flu yesterday. Germany will roll out its vaccine program on Oct. 26 and Ireland on Nov. 2. Spain is expected to start vaccinating in mid-November after regional health officials set a date, according to the Ministry of Health.

The first swine flu vaccines in the U.S. were given to doctors and hospital workers on Oct. 5.

The European Medicines Agency has approved GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Pandemrix, Novartis AG’s Focetria and Baxter International Inc.’s Celvapan for protection against swine flu in the European Union.

Switzerland, which isn’t part of the EU, has ordered 13 million doses of vaccine, though it hasn’t approved the inoculations yet, said Jean-Louis Zurcher, spokesman for the country’s Federal Office of Public Health.

To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Andrea Gerlin at

Last Updated: October 21, 2009 10:51 EDT