EUR: Swiss, Chinese unveil breakthrough swine flu vaccines
Fri Sep 4 04:55:40 EST 2009
Thu Sep 3 18:55:40 UTC 2009
BASEL, Switzerland, Sept 3 AFP - Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis says it has tested a new swine flu vaccine that may require only one dose while China has also unveiled a one-dose drug designed to curb the pandemic.
Novatis said it was ready to produce one million doses of the vaccine before the end of the year in a bid to blunt the spread of swine flu which has already claimed at least 2,185 lives including its first victim in Norway on Thursday,
The drug giant said it was in talks to supply 35 countries with the new vaccine and had signed deals worth $US979 million ($A1.17 billion) to supply the US government.
Experts had maintained that two doses of vaccine would be necessary to protect against the A(H1N1) infection, spreading existing supplies too thinly to provide widespread cover.
But clinical trials of the Novartis drug and of the Chinese vaccine showed that single doses could work effectively, easing fears raised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of a dangerous shortage of flu vaccine in the coming months.
"The pilot trial results are encouraging," said Andrin Oswald, chief executive of Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, referring to a trial of the vaccine conducted by Leicester University in Britain on 100 healthy volunteers aged 18 to 50.
While "two doses seem to provide better protection, one dose ... may be sufficient to protect adults against swine flu," he said.
More than two dozen pharmaceutical companies around the world are racing to test, produce and ship vaccines before the global swine flu pandemic enters an expected second wave later this year.
Last month WHO chief Margaret Chan said that vaccine supplies would be "extremely limited" in coming months, but one-dose drugs would go far to alleviate that concern.
"Initial information is encouraging and indicates that where supplies are limited because of restricted production, one-dose per person vaccines will provide population protection against swine flu," said Andrew Weiss, pharmaceutical company analyst at Vontobel Bank in Switzerland.
China earlier granted approval to its first homegrown vaccine, which producer Sinovac says is effective after only one dose.
"The Sinovac (A)H1N1 vaccine is officially approved," the head of the State Food and Drug Administration's drug registration department, Zhang Wei, told reporters.
Zhang said the administration was looking at applications from nine other Chinese companies which are developing swine flu vaccines.
Approval of the Sinovac vaccine came just days after China's health ministry warned of a potential mass outbreak as hundreds of millions of students went back to school this week with the winter flu season looming.
The ministry said China had confirmed 3,981 cases of swine flu as of Wednesday, but no deaths.
The WHO says at least 2,185 people have died worldwide after contracting swine flu which has now been detected in nearly every country in the world.
The latest victim was a Danish man working as a driver in Norway, the country's first swine flu death, health authorities in Oslo announced.
Meanwhile the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said it would announce details on Thursday on how it will deal with the spread of the virus as the flu season approaches.
