For a number of years Flublogia has periodically addressed the issue of whether a vaccine manufactured in another country should counted on by any other country, even if a pre-pandemic contract exists. The consensus has always been no.
If a pandemic strain of influenza is causing difficulties for a country’s population then that country will almost certainly embargo any product until their own citizens receive vaccine. It only makes sense, would the United States send vaccine to Haiti (our next-door neighbor) if residents and citizens remained unprotected against the threat of illness and even potential death? Probably not.
Then why does the US expect to receive contracted vaccine manufactured in Britain, Germany, or France should a pandemic strike with enough virulence to drive demand?
Vaccine Would Be Spoken For
Rich Nations Have Preexisting Contracts
By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Although no final decision has been made to produce a vaccine against the new strain of swine flu, officials at the World Health Organization say they are aware of “pre-production contracts” by wealthy countries that may lay claim to substantial quantities of any that is made.
The worldwide capacity for making a pandemic vaccine is 2 billion doses at the most and possibly as little as 1 billion doses, depending on the uncertainties involving production and dosage. Of that total, the United States has preexisting contracts that would allow it to buy at least 600 million doses.
In a best-case scenario, the world is more than four billion vaccines short.
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Robinson said HHS orders could go as high as two doses of vaccine for the entire U.S. population of about 305 million. Two shots may be needed to stimulate immunity against the newly emerged swine-origin H1N1 strain.
[snip]
Sanofi Pasteur has two vaccine plants in Swiftwater, Pa. An older one makes about 50 million doses of seasonal vaccine each year, and a new one, which got final approval yesterday from the Food and Drug Administration, has a capacity of about 100 million doses. Both could potentially be used to make a pandemic vaccine, company spokeswoman Donna Cary said this week. Capacity to make pandemic vaccine could potentially be significantly higher at those plants, because a pandemic vaccine contains one-third of the ingredients of a seasonal flu shot, which protects against three flu strains.
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In an e-mail exchange earlier in the week, Marie-Paule Kieny, the WHO’s director for vaccine research, said: “We don’t know who the purchasers are, and I’m not sure this will be publicly available soon.” She added, however, that “we are confident that they will be willing to free up supply for WHO, in order to help us assist developing countries.”
In a news conference from Geneva headquarters yesterday, she said that a panel of scientific experts will meet next Thursday to provide advice to the organization about whether it should ask manufacturers to start large-scale production. She said that on May 19, WHO Director General Margaret Chan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and executives of the vaccine companies will meet to consider ways “to ensure more equitable access to developing countries, should this vaccine be available.”
The potential shortage of vaccine for use in poor countries has some people worried. “If you impose this kind of restriction to equitable access, then it’s going to be a tremendous burden on how we control this outbreak,” said Jon K. Andrus, an expert in immunization at the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO’s office for the Americas.
Even if the new strain continues to cause relatively mild illness, it may be important to vaccinate certain segments of the population, such as pregnant women, who are at higher risk of severe illness and death.
Please do read the article in its entirety. As we face a potential pandemic of yet to be determined eventual severity, limitations on mitigation beyond our own actions are vitally important to understand.
Not everyone will get a vaccine. Those that are lucky enough to get a vaccine may not get one first or second go round, since severity drives how recipients are prioritized. Most Americans are likely to receive their vaccine right about the time the pandemic has ended.
