First Swine Flu Vaccinations May Start In Australia In A Month
Two million doses from Melbourne-based CSL Ltd. will be ready by the end of this month, enabling the program to commence once interim data from human trials have been assessed in early September, Australias Health Minister Nicola Roxon said today.
The timeframe may mean Australia will be the first country to start mass vaccinations against the new H1N1 virus in one of the largest public health campaigns, said Peter Cordingley, a Manila-based spokesman for the World Health Organization. Other governments plan to follow within months to stem swine flu, which has taken root across the globe faster than any previous influenza pandemic.
“Its absolutely the right thing to do, no question,” Lorena Brown, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Melbourne, said in a telephone interview. “We dont have any preexisting immunity, with the exception of the elderly who might have a bit, so the vaccine will hopefully halt the spread.”
Sanofi-Aventis SA, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and other vaccine makers are preparing to release shots before the start of the Northern Hemisphere winter to fight the pandemic, which the Geneva-based WHO says struck more than 182,000 people worldwide as of Aug. 13.
Vaccines arrived too late to provide maximum protection during the more severe phases of the 1957 and 1968 pandemics, and the shots hadnt yet been developed when the 1918 Spanish Flu swept around the world, eventually killing an estimated 50 million people, the WHO said.
Australias death toll from the virus reached 128, and there are 460 people in Australian hospitals with H1N1, 94 of them in intensive care, Roxon said.
Severe Edge
“While this disease is mild for most people, it does have that severe edge,” she told reporters in Canberra today. “We have seen overseas that this disease has continued beyond their winter flu season and we do expect that there will still be people that continue to be affected by this disease.”
Those most vulnerable to developing life-threatening complications include pregnant women, people with diabetes, asthma, HIV and other chronic medical conditions, as well as indigenous people in remote communities and the morbidly obese. These high-risk groups, along with health-care workers, will be among the first to receive the vaccination, Roxon said.
The Australian government has ordered 21 million doses of vaccine from CSL, the South Hemispheres only flu-vaccine maker. The remainder of the order will arrive in coming months, Roxon said.
Biggest Vaccination Program
CSL expects preliminary results on the first dose of its vaccine next week, Rachel David, a company spokeswoman, said on Aug. 18. No severe adverse reactions have been observed so far, and the company plans to submit the data to the Australian government on Sept. 4, she said.
Key information about the required composition of vaccines and whether one or two shots are needed probably wont be available until late September, Marie-Paule Kieny, director of WHOs initiative for vaccine research, said on Aug. 18. That data will help determine how many people could be immunized over the next few months, she said.
“We, ideally, would like to commence the program when we know if its going to be one or two doses,” Roxon said today. “But there is the potential for us to target vulnerable groups by giving the first dose and being able to recall them for a second dose if that becomes necessary.”