| ■ Advances Boost Production of Pandemic Flu Vaccine | 2007.10.26 |
| Recent scientific advances mean it should be possible to produce 4.5 billion doses of pandemic flu vaccine a year by 2010, says the World Health Organization. However, this would fall short of the WHO's target of providing a flu shot to the world's 6.7 billion people within six months of a pandemic being declared, Agence France-Presse reported. "With influenza vaccine production capacity on the rise, we are beginning to be in a much better position vis-a-vis the threat of an influenza pandemic," Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research, told journalists. The WHO has established an advisory committee to produce a report on the issue of pandemic flu vaccine supply, AFP reported. Experts fear that the H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate into a form that's easily transmitted between people, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions. |