WHO Experts Say More Bird Flu Vaccine Can Be Produced

[AlaskaDenise]

<TABLE style="DIRECTION: ltr" width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
23 October 2007
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Experts meeting at the World Health Organization say drug manufacturers will be able to sharply increase the amount of bird flu vaccine they are able to produce in the coming years. They say recent scientific advances and increased vaccine manufacturing capacity will make this possible. But they warn that an effective bird flu vaccine is still under development. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva where the first meeting of a WHO advisory group on pandemic influenza vaccine production was held.

The World Health Organization says last year, vaccine manufacturers reported they would be able to immediately produce about 100 million courses of pandemic influenza vaccine based on the current H5N1 avian influenza strain.

Experts attending the WHO meeting say they now anticipate that global production capacity will rise to 4.5 billion pandemic immunization courses a year in 2010.

Director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research at WHO, Marie-Paule Kieny, calls this significant progress. "But, this is not quite yet what we need to have because really the target of WHO and of most public health officials would be to be able to immunize the whole planet, which is 6.7 billion people. And, preferably in no more than six months because, as I am sure you have heard and seen in the press, that a pandemic if it occurs, is thought to be occurring in waves. So, you would have a first wave and then a second wave and then a third wave eventually," she said.

If drug companies are able to manufacture new doses of bird flu vaccine in six-month cycles, Kieny says there would be enough vaccine available to immunize people who were missed during the first wave of the pandemic.

She says drug companies will have to increase their yearly production of the seasonal flu vaccine currently on the market to one billion doses. She says this would give the pharmaceutical companies the capacity to produce enough bird flu vaccine to protect 4.5 billion people, because a bird flu vaccine is simpler in composition than the annual flu vaccine now available. If a pandemic were to occur, she says manufacturers would stop making the seasonal flu vaccine and switch to producing pandemic vaccine.

Scientists in the U.S. and Europe are currently testing a vaccine on humans that would protect against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. in some of the trials, the people who received the vaccines produced antibodies. But if the H5N1 virus mutates, the current vaccine may not work when a pandemic breaks out and it will have to be fine tuned.

"We do not know for the time being exactly what would be the pandemic vaccine otherwise we would already have a pandemic and we would already be making pandemic vaccines. But, we do not know until the beginning of a pandemic exactly which strain it would be. It is possible that it would be H5N1 because this is the type of virus which is circulating in bird populations. If the pandemic would start now with the H5N1 strain, it is thought that the vaccine which has been developed by the industry?the prototype would protect against this," said Kieny.

The H5N1 virus has killed hundreds of millions of birds. More than two hundred people who were in close contact with infected birds have died. Health experts are afraid millions of people could die if the deadly bird flu virus mutates into a form that allows it to spread from one person to another.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-10-23-voa46.cfm

 

[tropical]

Re: WHO Experts Say More Bird Flu Vaccine Can Be Produced

Lisa; Denise; :applause:

"... the target of WHO and of most public health officials would be to be able to immunize the whole planet ...":applause:
If the pandemic would start now with the H5N1 strain, it is thought that the vaccine which has been developed by the industry?the prototype would protect against this," said Kieny.

Than, WHO, start now with the hipothetic-pre-pandemics vaccine production for all humans, please.
If the pandemic starts, than we will see (maybe) for a matched one...

_____

Experts attending the WHO meeting say they now anticipate that global production capacity will rise to 4.5 billion pandemic immunization courses a year in 2010.

Director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research at WHO, Marie-Paule Kieny, calls this significant progress. "But, this is not quite yet what we need to have because really the target of WHO and of most public health officials would be to be able to immunize the whole planet, which is 6.7 billion people. And, preferably in no more than six months because, as I am sure you have heard and seen in the press, that a pandemic if it occurs, is thought to be occurring in waves. So, you would have a first wave and then a second wave and then a third wave eventually," she said.
I
f drug companies are able to manufacture new doses of bird flu vaccine in six-month cycles, Kieny says there would be enough vaccine available to immunize people who were missed during the first wave of the pandemic.

She says drug companies will have to increase their yearly production of the seasonal flu vaccine currently on the market to one billion doses. She says this would give the pharmaceutical companies the capacity to produce enough bird flu vaccine to protect 4.5 billion people, because a bird flu vaccine is simpler in composition than the annual flu vaccine now available. If a pandemic were to occur, she says manufacturers would stop making the seasonal flu vaccine and switch to producing pandemic vaccine.

Scientists in the U.S. and Europe are currently testing a vaccine on humans that would protect against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. in some of the trials, the people who received the vaccines produced antibodies. But if the H5N1 virus mutates, the current vaccine may not work when a pandemic breaks out and it will have to be fine tuned.

"We do not know for the time being exactly what would be the pandemic vaccine otherwise we would already have a pandemic and we would already be making pandemic vaccines. But, we do not know until the beginning of a pandemic exactly which strain it would be. It is possible that it would be H5N1 because this is the type of virus which is circulating in bird populations.
If the pandemic would start now with the H5N1 strain, it is thought that the vaccine which has been developed by the industry?the prototype would protect against this," said Kieny.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: WHO Experts Say More Bird Flu Vaccine Can Be Produced

...capacity will rise to 4.5 billion pandemic immunization courses a year in 2010.

Has anyone heard any new capacity numbers for any newly completed VAX plants?

For now I'll still plan on the numbers we've been using for the past year or so........350 million doses of trivalent currently produced globally in 11 months, could be changed to 500 million if the factories worked 24/7s - giving us 1.5 billion doses of monovalent in 11 months. But the H5N1 vaccine requires 2 doses, so I believe that comes to 68,181,818 people can complete their 2-dose course every month.

Of course, everyone expects that will be distributed equitably among the world's population.

.

 

[tropical]

Re: WHO Experts Say More Bird Flu Vaccine Can Be Produced

Of course, everyone expects that will be distributed equitably among the world's population.<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><v:shapetype id=_x0000_t75 stroked="f" filled="f" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" oreferrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600"> </v:shapetype>
<v:shapetype stroked="f" filled="f" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" oreferrelative="t" o:spt="75" coordsize="21600,21600"></v:shapetype>
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Everyone, except the guys who created the production-distribution policy, the WHO/ mil./ gov./ med./ vacc. staff peoples, and those who read FT, ..., and the other web/txt vacc. policy sources.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: WHO Experts Say More Bird Flu Vaccine Can Be Produced

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=420><TBODY><TR><TD align=left>Upping the ante for global safety

Public health will soon be faster and better safeguarded from any flu pandemic following an announcement that flu vaccine supplies have increased dramatically in the past year

</TD></TR><TR><TD>Recent scientific advances and increased vaccine manufacturing capacity have prompted experts to increase their projections of how many pandemic influenza vaccine courses can be made available in the coming years.<!--paragraph-->



Last spring, the World Health Organization (WHO) and vaccine manufacturers said that about 100 million courses of pandemic influenza vaccine based on the H5N1 avian influenza strain could be produced immediately with standard technology. Experts now anticipate that global production capacity will rise to 4.5 billion pandemic immunisation courses per year in 2010.
<!--paragraph-->

?With influenza vaccine production capacity on the rise, we are beginning to be in a much better position vis-?-vis the threat of an influenza pandemic,? said Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research at WHO.
<!--paragraph-->

?However, although this is a significant progress, it is still far from the 6.7 billion immunisation courses that would be needed in a six-month period to protect the whole world.?
<!--paragraph-->

?Accelerated preparedness activities must continue, backed by political impetus and financial support, to further bridge the still substantial gap between supply and demand,? she said.<!--paragraph-->


Step up production

This year, manufacturers have been able to step up production capacity of trivalent (three viral strains) seasonal influenza vaccines to an estimated 565 million doses, from 350 million doses produced in 2006, according to the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations.
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According to experts working in this field, the yearly production capacity for seasonal influenza vaccine is expected to rise to one billion doses in 2010, provided corresponding demand exists.
<!--paragraph-->

This would help manufacturers to be able to deliver around 4.5 billion pandemic influenza vaccine courses because a pandemic vaccine would need about eight times less antigen, the substance that stimulates an immune response.
<!--paragraph-->

Vaccine production capacity is linked to the amount of antigen that has to be used to make each dose of the vaccine. Scientists have recently discovered they can reduce the amount of antigen used to produce pandemic influenza vaccines by using water-in-oil substances that enhance the immune response.

The progress was reported at the first meeting of a WHO Advisory Group on pandemic influenza vaccine production and supply.<!--paragraph-->


Eight new strategies

The Global Action Plan Advisory Group ? an independent, international committee of 10 members, met at WHO headquarters one year after eight new strategies to increase pandemic influenza vaccine were identified and published in the WHO Global pandemic influenza Action Plan to increase vaccine supply.<!--paragraph-->


At the Advisory Group meeting, other progress on the Global Action Plan was discussed. WHO reported it is setting up a training hub that would serve as a source of technology transfer to developing countries.
<!--paragraph-->

The Advisory Group also discussed a new business plan which assessed options for further increasing vaccine production capacity and reviewed priority next steps.<!--paragraph-->


The most valuable options include continuing to promote seasonal influenza vaccine programmes, supporting the industry to sustain production capacity beyond seasonal demand and enabling some vaccine production facilities to change, at the onset of a pandemic, from producing inactivated vaccines to live attenuated vaccines.
<!--paragraph-->
Due to the higher yields obtained with live attenuated influenza vaccine technology, facility conversion could, by 2012, bridge the expected supply-demand gap and produce enough vaccine to protect the global population within six months of the declaration of a pandemic.
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