"Up until now, there have been 114 laboratory-confirmed deaths among children," the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, told a press conference, referring to swine flu.

The highest pediatric death toll from seasonal flu in the past three years was 88.

Along with the spike in child (A)H1N1 flu deaths, the US has seen "more hospitalizations in people under the age of 65 than in most entire flu seasons," Frieden said.

Federal health authorities were releasing the entire US stock of liquid Tamiflu antivirals for children, Frieden said.

Some 300,000 doses of liquid Tamiflu were released at the beginning of the month, and "we are now releasing an additional 234,000 courses from the strategic national stockpile," he said.

"That is the entire supply from the stockpile."

Frieden said the supply of (A)H1N1 vaccine was increasing steadily, with 10.5 million more doses ready to be shipped to state health authorities in the space of a week, boosting the total available to 26.6 million doses.

"The gap between supply and demand is closing," he said.

But the increase in vaccine availability has not yet been felt at the local level, and in Montgomery County, just outside Washington, health officials said they were canceling three innoculation clinics scheduled for next month.

"We've been told that supplies should become more regular but it hasn't reached the local level yet and I'm not sure it's reached the state level," Mary Anderson, a local health spokeswoman in Maryland, told AFP.

"When we planned these clinics four or five weeks ago, we were working under the assumption that vaccine supply was going to be plentiful," Anderson said.

"But we learned our lesson. We haven't been getting the supplies we expected, so we have to cancel the clinics."

Montgomery County health authorities have given out around 8,800 doses of vaccine to a population of about one million.

In mid-October, vaccine manufacturers warned of production slow-downs and health officials said supply would fall about 10 million doses short of the 40 million doses they had expected to have by the end of this month.

More than 5,700 people have died of swine flu worldwide since the virus was first uncovered in April, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said Friday.

The biggest rise was recorded in the Americas region, where 4,175 deaths have now been reported to the WHO.

earlier related report
Swine flu deaths soar, Ukraine closes schools
The number of global swine flu deaths spiked by 700 in a week, the World Health Organisation said Friday, as Ukraine closed schools and cinemas in the toughest measures taken in Europe over the virus.

More than 5,700 people have now died from the A(H1N1) since it broke out in April in Mexico and the United States in April, the WHO said.

The biggest rise in the past week was recorded in the Americas, were 636 more people were reported killed by swine flu, bringing the region's death toll to 4,175, the UN agency said.

Fatal cases in Europe also climbed to at least 281, while those in Asia-Pacific rose to 1,070.

"In the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere, influenza transmission continues to intensify, marking an unusually early start to winter influenza season in some countries," said the WHO.

Ukraine confirmed its first swine flu deaths, prompting Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to order schools and cinemas closed and ban public gatherings for three weeks to contain the spread of the virus.

The government will also introduce "special regimes" to limit the movement of Ukraine's citizens from one region to another for non-urgent purposes, she said. Ukraine has borders with four EU countries.

The prime minister's tough actions came as Ukraine confirmed four deaths from the A(H1N1) virus, amid a growing panic over several dozen unexplained deaths in the west of the country.

"We can say today that Ukraine has entered into the zone of the swine flu epidemic," Health Minister Vassyl Kniazevich said.

In the United States, the virus may have infected up to 5.7 million over the first four months of the outbreak, according to a study by the government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The figure is more than 100 times the number of cases confirmed in laboratories.

The researchers estimated that between 1.8 million to 5.7 million cases of A(H1N1) flu occurred in the United States in the four months from April, when the virus was first reported.

Of those cases, between 9,000 and 21,000 were hospitalised, the study said.

"We have been saying that we were just finding the tip of the iceberg with our laboratory confirmed reporting," Anne Schuchat, the director of the national center for immunisation and respiratory diseases, told reporters.

The A(H1N1) virus has also spread in European football leagues, just days after the French first division clash between Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille was postponed after three Parisian players were diagnosed with swine flu.

Spanish second division team Real Betis, based in Sevilla, has requested that its game on Sunday be postponed after 13 players became sick with swine flu.

The virus has also made its way into the English Premiership where Blackburn Rovers and Bolton reported that players and staff had contracted it.

Countries in the northern hemisphere have been arming themselves with swine flu vaccines for the winter months.

The WHO said experts concluded after a meeting this week that a single dose of swine flu vaccine would provide sufficient immunity against A(H1N1).

These vaccines were found to be safe for usage by pregnant women and can also be administered alongside seasonal flu vaccines, according to conclusions drawn from the meeting.

While clinical data was limited on the effects of vaccination on children under the age of 10, the WHO said countries should give a single dose to as many children as possible rather than vaccinating only half of the young population with two shots each.

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