# 4303
While the H5N1 bird flu virus has thus far not managed to adapt to humans well enough to spread among them easily, there are scientists and governments around the world who believe that may still happen.
With a CFR (Case Fatality Ratio) that has run 50% or greater in some countries, an outbreak would be far worse than anything the H1N1 virus has produced.
Although the probability of this happening is unknown, having a vaccine on hand would greatly reduce the impact of an outbreak.
Singapore, with a population of roughly 5 million and neighbor to bird flu endemic Indonesia, is looking to stockpile roughly 1 million doses of H5N1 vaccine.
This is a bit of a gamble, of course, since vaccines have a limited shelf life; generally 18 months to 2 years.
This from the Singapore Times.
Jan 29, 2010
1m doses of bird flu vaccine
By Jessica Jaganathan
THE Health Ministry will be buying about one million doses of H5N1 avian flu pre-pandemic vaccine soon.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan revealed yesterday that his ministry is evaluating a tender to stock up on the vaccine.
'It's one of those insurance policies that we have to buy and we will stock it up and hope never to have to use it,' he said.
'The virus is still out there and it may flare up, so we cannot afford not to do anything.'
The World Health Organisation's director-general, Dr Margaret Chan, had recently said that countries remain ill-prepared for mass outbreaks of the bird flu virus, which affects humans in contact with sick birds.
It has a mortality rate of more than 60 per cent, leading to fears that a pandemic with this strain of virus could prove lethal. Scientists also fear that it could achieve efficient human-to-human transmission at any time and trigger a pandemic.
