# 801
This article reinforces what those of us in the Flu community have been saying for nearly two years. Our global manufacturing capacity for influenza vaccines cannot even begin to meet the demands of a pandemic.
As dismal as the numbers are in this article, it may actually be worse than presented.
Suddenly, over the past month, the idea has been floated that we could produce 1.5 Billion doses of vaccine instead of 500 million each year, because we can currently produce 500 million trivalent doses of vaccine. If we only need to protect against a single strain, we can produce three times more monovalent doses.
It's a nice idea, but it totally ignores the fact that so far, many of the vaccines have required more than the standard 15ug antigen dose to get the desired immune response, and that nearly all of these vaccines will require two shots, given 30 days apart.
So, if two shots are required, 1.5 billion doses would only inoculate 750 million people. And that assumes that an approved adjuvant can be added to the shot to improve the immune response.
Also not mentioned is the fact that using egg-based manufacturing techniques with the H5N1 virus has produced mixed results. The H5N1 virus tends to kill 30% the eggs used to create the antigen, and until that problem is solved, it is unclear if we can really produce 1.5 billion doses.
In any event, the idea of `equitable sharing' of a vaccine appears to be a distant dream.
Shortage of pandemic flu vaccine to last five years
GENEVA (Reuters) - A global shortage of pandemic influenza vaccines will last for at least five years, leaving three-quarters of the population unprotected against a potential outbreak, a senior United Nations official said on Wednesday.
David Heymann, head of communicable diseases for the World Health Organization (WHO), said drugmakers can produce enough vaccine for only 1.5 billion of the globe's 6.2 billion people.
"The world is not prepared for a pandemic should it occur today. We don't have enough vaccine," Heymann told journalists as the WHO's annual assembly meetings wrapped up in Geneva.
It will be "a five year maximum before we believe we will have enough vaccine to begin to talk about equitable sharing," Heymann said.
The WHO agreed this week to revamp its 50-year-old rules requiring countries to share flu virus samples to meet concerns from Indonesia and other developing nations that samples they provided were being used to create costly commercial vaccines that they could then not afford to buy.
It set up a working group to revise the terms of reference for WHO laboratories which analyze samples of viruses, such as the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, and to draft rules for sharing samples with external researchers and drug companies.
