Global production of seasonal flu vaccine is expected to double to 1.7 billion doses by 2015, with 11 new manufacturers coming onstream in developing countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday.
If a new influenza pandemic erupts, the world's projected 37 vaccine makers could potentially triple their annual production of trivalent seasonal vaccine to make 5.4 billion doses of pandemic vaccine, the United Nations agency said.
But the actual amount would depend on the yield of the virus grown in the egg - disappointingly low for H1N1 - and how much adjuvant - which stretches the active ingredient - is used in pandemic vaccine, experts said.
''The estimate is by 2015, if all projects that are currently going on get to successful implementation, we would have something around 1.7 billion doses of seasonal vaccine,'' WHO assistant director-general Marie-Paule Kieny told a briefing after experts held three-day talks.
"In making pandemic vaccine you have a multiplication by a factor of three.''
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