# 466
There is an old story about a very optimistic child who was shown a pile of manure and immediate jumped in and began digging. When asked why he did so, he replied,"When there's this much manure, there must be a pony somewhere nearby!"
I sometimes think these kids grow up to write newspaper headlines.
After the WHO's announcement today that `encouraging progress' had been made in the quest for a bird flu vaccine which I blogged about here, we are now seeing followup articles with very optimistic estimates as to how soon a pandemic vaccine could be readied. One such headline just crossed the wires:
Bird flu vaccine possible within three months of outbreak: WHO
Admittedly, this sounds like wonderful news. And if everything went perfectly, perhaps a limited quantity of vaccine might be produced in that time. But the casual reader, skimming the news headlines, will come away with a different impression.
The body of the story gives a bit more perspective. Headlines are not generally written by the reporter, which may explain the disconnect.
GENEVA (AFP) - The World Health Organisation said that a vaccine against the human strain of the H5N1 influenza virus could be produced within three months of an outbreak.
Speaking after a two-day meeting of experts, meeting chair Ian Gust told journalists the rate of progress over the past 15 months into a vaccine that could prevent human-to-human transmission was "probably unprecedented."
In a best case scenario, manufacturers could be able to produce a vaccine within three months of a pandemic, he said.
However, "under those circumstances everything has to work perfectly, and as you can imagine, there are plenty of hiccups along the way," for example if the first outbreak were to occur in a remote location, he cautioned.
"There would be a delay until it was identified, there would be a delay until a team was sent there to investigate it, there would be a delay in bringing the sample out ... so you can see that there would be some delays along the way," Gust said.
Not mentioned in this article are the logistics in delivering a vaccine, assuming you had one, to millions of people. It isn't as easily done as you might imagine. We tried it in 1976 with the Swine flu, and in ten weeks only managed to inoculate 40 million people.
And there was no pandemic, or panic, or disruption of services going on at the time.
Today, no one even knows who should receive priority for a vaccine. The elderly? Children? Essential workers? The Military? And a hundred million doses or so would be spread pretty thin across 6.7 billion people. Producing the vaccine in a laboratory is just the first step.
There is progress being made, and that is legitimate good news. Being able, in a best case scenario, to produce the first batches of vaccine in 3 months as opposed to 6 months is a great improvement. It would certainly save lives in the long run.
My concern is that people will read and remember the headline, and not absorb the details. They will now see the goal posts moved closer, and believe they will be lining up for a pandemic jab 90 days after the first announcement of an outbreak somewhere in the world.
95% of the worlds vaccine is produced by 11 countries, which have a combined population of roughly 750 million people. Their total production capacity is only about 400 million doses a year. Unless and until we can find ways to increase that production, the numbers simply don't work.
And as far as the rest of the world, the other nearly 6 billion people who live in non-vaccine producing nations?
Their lot is less optimistic.
