The US government has been accused of handling the flu epidemic badly.

Independent senator Joseph Lieberman and Republican senator Susan Collins say the Health Department reacted quickly to the epidemic, but public information campaigns were confusing.

In addition there were too few vaccines available which meant for instance that pregnant women who had waited for hours in queues failed to get inoculated.

The senators say other high risk groups also felt frustrated about how the scarce medication against swine flu, known in the Netherlands as Mexican flu, was distributed.

The United States had great difficulty producing sufficient amounts of vaccine, partly because manufacturers have to work with outdated technology.

An estimated 22 million Americans have contracted H1N1, almost 4000 have died of the disease.

Photo: flu pandemic - Flickr/FaceMe PLS