Last updated at 12:54 AM on 23rd July 2009
Plans at risk: The Government had hopes to vaccinate 30million people against swine flu by the end of the year
Emergency plans to vaccinate half the population against swine flu by Christmas are at risk because of a hitch in production, it has emerged.
Experts warned yesterday any delay could leave vulnerable people, particularly pensioners, waiting months longer for the jab.
Pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, which will provide most of the UK's jabs, admitted it was having serious problems growing enough quantities of its vaccine.
It means it could take far longer before the Government receives enough vaccine to fulfil its promise to treat 30million people by the end of the year.
Draft priority lists for the vaccine say it will be given first to NHS staff, three to 16-year-olds, pregnant women, those with certain health problems, and the over-65s.
But one expert said that if delivery is delayed, he believes pensioners will be the ones to lose out - because so far they have not been hit severely by the virus.
Professor Hugh Pennington, bacteriologist at Aberdeen University, said this would be a mistake, because in previous pandemics the elderly have often been affected in the second wave.
He said: 'Manufacturers are getting half the yield they were hoping for. So it seems a no brainer that unless they can pep the virus up, it will take twice as long to create the same amount of vaccine.
'If they rely on the strain they've got, supplies will be slower at coming through.
'I think the total the Government is expecting by the end of the year will have to come down significantly.
Most drugs manufacturers, including GSK, grow vaccines in the lab by putting modified viruses inside chicken eggs.
But the yield so far has been disappointing - with only half as much vaccine created as would be expected when seasonal flu jabs are being grown.
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