WHO-vaccine makers meeting leads to few donations

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WHO-vaccine makers meeting leads to few donations

Updated Wed. May. 20 2009 8:23 AM ET

The Canadian Press

A summit between flu vaccine makers and the heads of the UN and the World Health

Organization produced no new concrete offers of donated vaccine, the WHO said

Tuesday.

While manufacturers acknowledged a global responsibility, at least one wanted to

know who would pay for vaccine to be set aside for developing countries. And

none of the major manufacturers offered to donate or set aside for UN purchase a

portion of their H1N1 vaccine production, a WHO spokesperson said.

But Melinda Henry played down the lack of progress, saying talks are ongoing.

" I don't think that firm pledges were really expected today, " said Henry,

spokeswoman for the agency's immunization, vaccines and biologics division.

" I think we could say that WHO is hopeful and we're working with these companies

and we're going to be talking with them on a bilateral basis in the coming days

and weeks. "

The meeting brought executives of more than 30 vaccine-making companies to

Geneva to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and WHO Director General

Margaret Chan.

Meanwhile, a committee of experts that advises the WHO on vaccine issues

reported Tuesday that it is " premature " to tell vaccine makers to move into

large scale production of a swine flu vaccine.

The ad hoc policy advisory working group, as it is called, recommended

manufacturers complete the production of seasonal flu vaccine for the Northern

Hemisphere winter, while making plans to potentially go into development of a

vaccine for the novel H1N1 afterwards.

The report said the Northern Hemisphere vaccine will be completed in two lots,

at the end of June and the end of July.

The committee said manufacturers should be urged to begin making trial lots of

H1N1 vaccine when the so-called vaccine seed strain is ready. It's expected that

at least one of the seed strains under production by a number of WHO-sanctioned

labs will be ready before the end of May.

The report urged vaccine makers not to combine a vaccine to protect against the

new H1N1 strain with the seasonal vaccine, saying that would pose " significant

regulatory implications. "

The committee said with full-scale production the combined global output of a

pandemic vaccine could be 4.9 billion doses over the course of a year, 400

million of which the UN might be able to access.

At least 16 developed countries have standing contracts with vaccine makers to

secure first or early access to any pandemic vaccine that is made. It is

believed hundreds of millions of doses of the first runs of vaccine production

are already spoken for by countries like Canada, which has a long-term contract

with vaccine giant GlaxoKline.

It is expected, though not clear at this point, that people would need two doses

each of this new vaccine, because human immune systems have no experience with

this swine virus.

So far, only six vaccine makers have pledged a total of about 27 million doses

to the WHO; those commitments were made last week at the meeting that led to the

ad hoc working group's report.

Chan reportedly said one unnamed company offered half of its output. Henry said

Chan described the company as " a small supplier with big vision. "

Henry said a network of vaccine makers from developing countries offered to make

10 per cent of their output available for UN purchase. But these manufacturers

do not have the scale of production that the major vaccine makers do.

The major producers from the developing world - who make the bulk of the world's

flu vaccine - have not as yet offered to donate H1N1 vaccine or make it

available for purchase by the UN.

And Henry said at least one company at the meeting indicated it would need WHO's

instructions before moving to produce H1N1 vaccine.

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