WHO sees boost in flu pandemic vaccine production

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation today said that recent scientific advances should boost production capacity of pandemic flu vaccines to 4.5 billion doses annually by 2010.

"With influenza vaccine production capacity on the rise, we are beginning to be in a much better position vis-a-vis the threat of an influenza pandemic," said Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers including global giants Novartis, Glaxo SmithKline and Sanofi-Pasteur have been able to boost production of trivalent seasonal flu vaccines to around 565 million doses from 350 million in 2006, Kieny told journalists.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations expects to be able to ramp up capacity to one billion doses in 2010 providing demand exists, she added.

This could result in around 4.5 billion doses of pandemic vaccine, which uses eight times less antigen, the substance that stimulates an immune response, than a seasonal dose, the WHO said.

However, Kieny stressed this was still short of the WHO's target of being able to provide a vaccine to all of the world's 6.7 billion people within six months of a pandemic being declared.