AFP/Madrid

Spain is anticipating that the swine flu epidemic will reach its peak in the country later this month before starting to decline, a government minister revealed yesterday.

Health authorities believe “the peak of contagion” will be “in the last days of November”, Health Minister Trinidad Jimenez told reporters.

But she admitted that it was “difficult to predict” how the epidemic would develop.

Spain announced last month it would begin swine flu vaccinations on November 16, later than in many other European countries.