By Tom Randall and Elizabeth Lopatto
July 23 (Bloomberg) -- Swine flu vaccine delays reported by Novartis AG, Sanofi Aventis SA and Baxter International Inc. shouldn’t postpone availability in October, health officials said. That won’t be soon enough for kids going back to school.
When U.S. agencies laid out their plan for pandemic vaccine production, they anticipated that companies may harvest only half the immunity-triggering antigen grown from a typical seasonal flu strain, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland.
CSL Ltd., based in Australia, and Paris-based Sanofi are tapping the institute’s network of eight vaccine-testing research hospitals to study the shot’s safety, effectiveness and proper dosing, Fauci said in a telephone interview. Recommendations based on the studies will apply to vaccines made by five U.S. suppliers, and results should be available in September, Fauci said.
“We’re not going to get all of the vaccine from all of the companies at the same time,” Fauci said. “We need to be prepared for the possibility that when the schools open, there may be an acceleration of cases. That’s why we want to have it as quickly as we can in the fall. We should be on track.”
School Openings
At least 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine will be available in mid-October, and more deliveries will provide enough shots to inoculate everyone in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The shots won’t be available when children return to schools in August and early September, Arne Duncan, the U.S. education secretary, told reporters today in Washington.
“We got a little bit lucky last year when this didn’t hit until late in the school year,” Duncan said. “We’re not going to be lucky going into this school year. We have to be ready now.”
Also today, the CDC published a report linking swine flu to seizures in two Texas children and hallucinations, difficulty standing and slowed speech in two others.
This is the first evidence of seizures or other neurological symptoms from swine flu, also called H1N1, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report said. Seasonal flu can cause brain complications such as personality changes, loss of concentration, involuntary eye movements and impairment of cognitive function, according to an editorial accompanying the report.
Spreading Quickly
The pandemic H1N1 virus has spread across the world faster than any previous influenza outbreak, and its full force may reach the U.S. earlier than the typical flu season, according to the CDC. England and Wales are suffering the worst rates of flu in a decade, even though the usual flu season doesn’t start for several months.
The U.S. has contracts with five companies to provide shots. Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, is responsible for 45 percent of the supply, Sanofi will provide 26 percent and CSL Ltd. will make 19 percent, Fauci said. The remaining doses will be made by London-based drugmakers AstraZeneca Plc and GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
Antigens are substances derived from the virus that trigger the body to produce disease-fighting antibodies.
Every American should get a shot for the seasonal flu, which is “ready to go for the upcoming season,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today at the briefing. People should cough in their sleeves, wash their hands and stay home if they’re sick to prevent the spread of flu, she said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Randall in New York at trandall6@bloomberg.net; Elizabeth Lopatto in New York at elopatto@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 23, 2009 15:51 EDT
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