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U.S. Asks Firms to Make Swine Flu Vaccine
The federal government has asked three drug companies to make enough swine flu vaccine to immunize at least 20 million people in key positions in health care, national security and emergency services, officials said yesterday. The order, announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is part of a $1 billion investment in immediate production and testing of vaccine against the newly emerged strain of the H1N1 flu virus. Further orders for potentially hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine are expected."This is really to reserve our place in line," Sebelius said at a news conference at the agency's day-care center. Although questions remain unanswered about the effectiveness of a swine flu vaccine, how many doses it will take to protect a person and who should get it, Sebelius said that "we can't wait" for the answers before putting the manufacturing machinery in motion. The order is for bulk quantities of a killed version of the virus and two different adjuvants, chemical additives that boost the immune system's response and allow a lower dose of vaccine to be used, which in turn stretches the supply. The money will also pay for testing pilot lots of the vaccine in human volunteers. The vaccine ingredients would not be combined and "finished" into usable vaccine until late summer. Special permission from the Food and Drug Administration will be needed for the adjuvants to be used, as neither one is currently approved for use in this country. The government's pandemic preparedness plan divides the U.S. population into five tiers of priority for getting the vaccine. The first tier, of about 24 million people, includes deployed armed forces members; critical health-care workers; fire, police and ambulance workers; pregnant women and small children. HHS has contracts with five companies to make pandemic vaccine. The department has activated the ones with Sanofi Pasteur, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline. It is still negotiating with the two others, MedImmune and CSL, an Australian company.
Posted by: Steve White 2009-05-24 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=270382 |