A French cat with "swine flu"

It's a slightly different take perhaps to begin with on the "swine flu" - or H1N1/influenza A as it's more commonly called here - epidemic in France.

The first case of a domestic pet coming down with the flu, confirmed last week by the director general of health, Didier Houssin.

The sick animal is a cat in the Bouches-du-Rhône département in the south of France and belonging to a family that had also been suffering from the flu.

The vet taking care of it had apparently found the cat to have bronchial pneumonia and diagnosed flu.

No need to panic though that the nation's pets will soon be victim to the same epidemic that has already seen the death of 150 people in this country (according to official statistics released by the health ministry on Wednesday) as it is for the moment just an isolated case.

"There have been several cases of this type abroad in pig and dogs in China recently," said Houssin.

"And then a cat in the United States," he continued before usefully adding that the best way to avoid pets falling victim to the flu was for "people who owned them to get themselves vaccinated."

Ah yes. The vaccination process which started off tentatively in October among health professionals and then a couple of weeks later was extended to certain sectors of the general public according to a priority list of those most susceptible to the possible effects of the flu such as those with nursing infants, children, expectant mothers and people with respiratory problems.

Where does the country stand at the moment?

Well the 3,000 special vaccination centres set up to "handle the hordes" were pretty underused during the first few weeks but then of course the French panicked somewhat and there were reported cases of some people waiting more than three hours before being able to get themselves (and/or their children) vaccinated.

From that slow start though, almost 3.8 million people have now been vaccinated, and the health minister, Roselyne Bachelot, expects the number to reach four million by the end of the week.

And she's obviously hoping that the numbers will increase significantly especially as the rest of the general public have started to receive their "official invitations" required before they can make their way to a vaccination centre.

While the figures for those consulting their doctors with suspected symptoms of the H1N1 had, according to official figures, stabilised over the past week, Bachelot warned against any general complacency.

"You should know that in general, outbreaks of flu evolve in waves and it is very possible that more waves will follow," she said.

"What the experts say is the second wave is often more virulent than the first."