November 18, 2005

Global bird flu vaccine capacity now at 425 million doses
 

Global capacity to produce vaccines for the lethal bird flu virus is now 425 million doses, a WHO official said here Thursday.

That figure is up from a 300 million estimate cited by WHO during the summer.

The new figure was cited by Margaret W. Chan, the WHO deputy director general in charge of pandemics.

Scientists around the world are looking into possible vaccines or treatments for H5N1, a virus that may one day mutate into a humanly transmissible form.

"We may for the first time in history have time to prepare for a pandemic," Chan said at a press conference after meeting with the Italian Health Minister Francesco Storace.

"There's global consensus that this will happen so we have to be prepared," said Lee Jong Wook, WHO's director-general.

Vaccine production capacity has stagnated globally as many drug companies have steered away from the capital-intensive sector and its typically low margins.

Vaccines, widely seen as a preferred protection than antiviral drugs, typically are developed out of cultivated cell lines of the target virus.

Bird flu virus H5N1 may pose a special challenge as the virus is so lethal it kills embryos before they can be harvested for use.

Moreover, fertilised eggs are crucial to mass producing an influenza vaccine, yet if H5N1 were to spread rapidly beyond its current range, many poultry farms would be culled to prevent further contagion, Citigroup said in a report Thursday.