| ■ Feds prescribe new recipe for flu shot | 2008.02.26 |
| WASHINGTON - Next year's flu vaccine is getting a complete overhaul to provide protection against three new and different influenza strains — hopefully better protection than this year's version. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration unanimously backed the new recipe on Thursday, echoing an earlier decision by the World Health Organization. It's a highly unusual move: Seldom are more than one or two strains swapped out from one year to the next. Now the question is whether vaccine manufacturers can make such a big change in time to produce more than 100 million doses by the fall. "It's going to be a really busy spring and summer, and of course we're always looking for fallback positions just in case things don't work out well," said Dr. Nancy Cox, flu director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There's a lot of work that will be going on ... to try and make sure that everything comes together in such a way that there will be plenty of vaccine." |