The world has made "encouraging progress" in developing vaccines
against a potential bird flu pandemic, the World Health
Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
Currently 16 manufacturers from 10 countries are developing
prototype pandemic influenza vaccines against the deadly H5N1 avian
influenza virus, the UN agency said in a statement.
At present, more then 40 clinical trials have been completed or
are ongoing, and "all vaccines were safe and well tolerated in all
age groups tested," it said.
According to the statement, a two-day expert meeting on advances
in pandemic influenza vaccine development has just ended in Geneva,
where the WHO is based.
"For the first time, results presented at the meeting have
convincingly demonstrated that vaccination with newly developed
avian influenza vaccines can bring about a potentially protective
immune response against strains of H5N1 virus," it said.
"Some of the vaccines work with low doses of antigen, which
means that significantly more vaccine doses can be available in
case of a pandemic," the WHO added.
This was a third such meeting in just two years and its
objectives were to review progress in the development of candidate
vaccines against pandemic influenza viruses and to reach consensus
on future priority activities.
More than 100 influenza vaccine experts from academia, national
and regional public health institutions, the pharmaceutical
industry and regulatory bodies throughout the world attended the
meeting convened by the WHO Initiative for Vaccine Research and the
WHO Global Influenza Program.
In spite of the encouraging progress noted at the meeting, the
WHO stressed that the world still lacks the manufacturing capacity
to meet potential global pandemic influenza vaccine demand.
The world's current vaccine manufacturing capacity is estimated
at less than 400 million doses per year of trivalent seasonal
influenza vaccine.
In response to this challenge, the WHO launched in 2006 the
Global pandemic influenza action plan to increase vaccine supply, a
US$10-billion effort over 10 years.
One of its aims is to enable developing countries to establish
their own influenza vaccine production facilities through transfer
of technology, providing them with the most sustainable and
reliable response to the threat of pandemic influenza.
(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2007)
