The World Health Organization doled out US$2 million for Thailand to produce a human bird flu vaccine.
The asian country plagued by bird flu needs a total of US$45 million to manufacture the vaccine in its own pharmaceutical factory and the $2 million seed money will be used for a pilot plant that can produce about 10,000 doses for human use.
Thailand has become the sixth country to receive such a financial incentive from WHO,
which earlier made such agreements with Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.
[source:ETNA]
Tags: bird flu, influenza, vaccine

The US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of FluMist for children under 5, despite concerns that the nasal spray vaccine caused increased respiratory problems in some patients.
According to the FDA website, the vaccine appears to prevent influenza in children as young as six months. Currently, the nasal spray is only recommended for children and adults age 5 to 49. However, clinical testing results also showed that children on FluMist were more likely to develop wheexing problems when compared to children treated with an injectable vaccine.
Honestly, I don’t know how well received this will be by young children. It’s …read more

The World Health Organization calculated that roughly 60 million doses of bird flu vaccines will be needed by developing countries to protect 1% of their populations.

Today, WHO announced that it just might help build that needed stockpile.

One more reason for patients with heart problems to get vaccinated -

Influenza epidemics are associated with a rise in autopsy-confirmed coronary deaths.

An 8-year study found that coronary deaths due to acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and ischemic heart disease (IHD) coincided with peaks of influenza epidemics. Published April 17 in the European Heart Journal, the team of Dr. Mohammad Madjid of the University of Texas studied autopsy reports in St. Petersburg, Russia and found that the odds of an AMI and chronic IHD death increased by 1.30 during weeks of flu epidemics.

In keeping with its promise for more equitable access to pandemic flu vaccines, the World Health Organization awarded $2.5 million each to Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico and India for vaccine development.
This is definitely a direct result of Indonesia’s hardballing last February, when it refused to share bird flu samples unless vaccines become more affordable to developing countries.
With the grant, these countries will be on their way to making domestic vaccines much needed by their populace. Currently, there is not enough pandemic vaccine to go around for the world’s population. And though it will take several years for before …read more

I guess the US government would rather have an excess than a shortage any year, so the 2007-2008 flu season will have anywhere from 127 to 132 million doses of vaccines available, maybe even more.
Despite throwing away 10 million unused vaccines from last season, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention approved the production of this much vaccine supply for the coming flu season.
Earlier this year, there were 18 million doses of vaccines unsold, due in part of delay in distribution and a mild flu season. There was worry that scenario will cause vaccine manufacturers to procude less for the …read more

A major breakthrough against bird flu, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first human bird flu vaccine this week.
Even if the vaccine only provoked an immune response in 45% of those tested, epidemiologists believe the vaccine is a solid start to stockpiling a vaccine against a bird flu that has spread unrelentlessly across the globe.
However, there are drawbacks to this particular vaccine manufactured by Sanofi Pasteur -
The period of time – a month- needed to administer two required doses is longer than health officials would like. Further, the amount of flu protein needed for a single course of …read more

The H5N1 vaccine developed by Baxter International is working for humans against several strains of the virus, paving the way for the final phase of trial before the drug can be approved.

“What’s important about Phase I/II data is that the results show that Baxter’s vaccine works against many strains of the H5N1 avian flu virus without any additives [adjuvant] to boost effectiveness,” said Baxter spokesman Chris Bona. “Additives can add additional cost and they are believed to cause side effects” such as headache and fever, he added.

Baxter has developed a cell-based technology for producing flu vaccines, allowing for larger quantities …read more

More than 10 million unsold doses of flu vaccines will be considered trash on June 30th. The vaccines are expired so that only an all-new recipe will be in market come the next flu season. But this annual practice has been getting some heat because these vaccines are perfectly good and may still be useful.
The federal Food and Drug Administration set an annual expiration date for destroying unused vaccines so the recipe for each new flu season only includes the three strains causing the most cases. No one has tested if the vaccines are potent beyond the June 30 date, …read more

Will a vaccine’s 45% effectiveness be sufficient to protect the US population against a pandemic?
That’s the question that the Food and Drug Administration staff are asking themselves about Sanofi Aventis’ new bird flu vaccine. The FDA will meet on Tuesday to weigh approval of a bird flu vaccine that is less effective than previously published. In a follow up clinical trial, Sanofi’s two-shot vaccine stimulated an immune response in only 45 percent of study participants. Last March, published results showed that the vaccine protected 54 percent of patients, when tested a month after getting the second shot.
In …read more