A just released report on world wide vaccine production capacity says . . . if you don't have access to the report (and I don't, as yet), what it says depends on which news source you want to read. For example you can read Reuters (the glass half full wire service stroy) or Agence France Presse (the glass half empty wire service study). Here are the ledes in each:
Reuters:
Drug companies have increased their capacity to make bird flu vaccines by 300% in the past two years but will still need four years to meet global demand in the event of a pandemic, a study says.
It also said doses of vaccine tailored to the actual strain of pandemic influenza that emerges will not be available until four months after that strain is identified.
"We found that considerable progress has been made to enhance the production capacity of pandemic influenza vaccine," Adam Sabow, partner at consultanting firm Oliver Wyman which conducted the study, said in a statement.
"While capacity still falls short of global need during a pandemic, the surplus capacity during the inter-pandemic period creates opportunities for preparedness efforts," he said. (Reuters)
AFP:
The production capacity of bird flu vaccines has tripled since 2007 but it could still take up to four years to meet global demand if a pandemic were to occur, a WHO-backed study said on Tuesday.
Even in the best case scenario, 18 months would be required for sufficient doses of medication to be produced to cover the worldwide population, the study said.
Marie-Paule Kieny, who heads the World Health Organization's initiative for vaccine research, expressed concern that production facilities might cut back because supply had more than met demand for regular, seasonal vaccines.
"We still don't have enough production capability to cover the whole world in the early months of the pandemic... and what is worrying especially is that the capacity to make seasonal vaccines ... is now much larger than the demand for these vaccines." (AFP)
Both stories have the same facts, but different emphases:
Reuters:
"We found that considerable progress has been made to enhance the production capacity of pandemic influenza vaccine," Adam Sabow, partner at consultanting firm Oliver Wyman which conducted the study, said in a statement.
"While capacity still falls short of global need during a pandemic, the surplus capacity during the inter-pandemic period creates opportunities for preparedness efforts," he said.
[snip]
In the most likely case, manufacturers could produce 2.5 billion doses of pandemic vaccine in the 12 months following receipt of the production strain, requiring four years to satisfy global demand, the study said.
In the current best-case scenario, 7.7 billion doses could be produced in the first 12 months, requiring 1.5 years to satisfy global demand, it said. Production was expected to increase significantly over the next five years.
AFP:
Kieny noted that global demand at the moment for regular flu vaccines stands at 500 million doses per year, but capacity is running at 800 million doses a year and climbing up to 1.7 billion doses in 2014.
"We are now building a surplus capacity. What will the manufacturers do with it? Either they maintain it... or they close some of them down," she said.
Stephen Gardner from pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline warned: "You cannot create vaccine capacity and then mothball this capacity until a pandemic outbreak."
For Reuters, there is a possibility of satisfying global demand (given the unrealistic goal of vaccinating almost everyone on earth) in just a year and a half. There is already a surplus of production capacity for seasonal vaccine and this is an opportunity to stockpile more in the case of a pandemic. For AFP it will take four years to satisfy "global demand" (no mention of an optimistic case) and the surplus is a worry: it may encourage manufacturers to shut down plants.
Given the same set of facts it's hard to decide which is closer to the truth. Probably they both are.
Yes, I know; "closer" is an antisymmetric binary relation. Sue me.
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Revere, "sue you"!?! For what, reporting on two global news source takes regarding some bizarre hyper-evolving cross-species pathogen... Predictable for me to say but, multiclade A/H5N1 has a temporal and spatial symmetry with the 1990s global environmental release of genetically modified (GM) crops.
When Hazel Mendonca, Customer Service Directorate UK Department of Health writes, "[Re: the] possible link between genetically modified food and avian flu..." what do you reckon she believes this "cause-effect" link assertion to mean on a technical level!?!
Re: From UK Department of Health 2006 -- Avian flu
Friday, March 10, 2006 9:04 AM
From: "Hazel Mendonca"
To: "Jonathon Singleton"
Our ref: TO00000073916
10 March 2006
Dear Mr Singleton,
Thank you for your email of 5 January to the Home Office about avian flu. As this is a health related matter, your email has been passed to the Department of Health for response. I have been asked to reply.
With regard to a possible link between genetically modified food and avian flu, may I suggest that you address your concerns to the Food Standards Agency as they are best placed to comment on this matter..."
Copy of letter sent to US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack via the Union of Concerned Scientists action center (Oz time: Saturday, February 21, 2009), opposing the agencyâs proposed regulations for pharmaceutical and industrial crops:
Dear Secretary,
Last fall, the previous administration proposed regulations that would weaken oversight of pharma crops--genetically engineered crops that produce drugs and industrial chemicals. I urge the new administration to withdraw this proposal and craft new rules that protect our food supply.
The current proposal moves the USDA in the wrong direction on pharma crops. Rather than weaken current regulations, the department should protect the food supply from pharma crops by instituting a ban on the outdoor production of these drugs and industrial chemicals in crops that are also human food staples, like corn and rice.
Pharma crop regulations are already too weak; yet this proposal will remove the mandatory requirements that are currently in place and instead allow agency officials wide discretion to declare certain pharma crop substances as low risk and therefore subject to minimal control...
Indeed, I was shocked to hear -- via British sources -- of experiments in breach of the Nuremberg Code / medical ethics code being conducted by Tufts university which involve the feeding of genetically modified Golden Rice to human subjects (adults and children).
The Bush administration broadcasted a laissez faire signal across America with regard to regulatory controls and oversight -- a highly dangerous path, feeding human "guinea pigs" unstable genetic material (utilizing viruses) which has known and unknown adverse health consequences!
Please read the following open letter excerpt from ISIS Press Release (16/02/09), "Scientists Protest Unethical Clinical Trials of GM Golden Rice"
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/SPUCTGM.php
Professor Robert Russell,
Professor Emeritus, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
Tufts University School of Medicine
711 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111-1524
Email: rob.russell(at)tufts.edu
Dear Professor Russell,
We are writing to express our shock and unequivocal denunciation of the experiments being conducted by your colleagues which involve the feeding of genetically modified Golden Rice to human subjects (adults and children.) We are all senior scientists / academics with a professional interest in the health and environmental effects of GMOs. We refer to three trials described on the US Clinical Trials web site:
Project NCT 00680355.(10) Bioavailability of Golden Rice Carotenoids in Humans.
Project NCT 00082420. Retinol Equivalence of Plant Carotenoids in Children.
Project NCT 00680212. Vitamin A Equivalence of Plant Carotenoids in Children.
We can assure you that such trials would not have been approved within the European Union in the absence of safety information, which highlights yet again the flaw of the USDA and FDA regulatory system in considering GM crops/foods as hypothetically âgenerally recognised as safe â GRASâ in the absence of hard experimental data.
These unethical and potentially dangerous trials MUST be stopped, and we ask you to undertake a thorough review of why and how they were approved and funded in the first place. Please accept this letter as a formal protest, and please forward it to the relevant authorities at USDA, FDA, NIDDK, NIH and the US State Department.
We look forward to hearing from you.
No, for saying each is "closer" to the truth than the other when "closer" is a binary antisymmetric relation. It was sort of tongue in cheek. This implies they are the same. Which they aren't.
An independent oversight committee should examine the plethora of circulating claims and counter-claims and report on return on investment.
The press release from the horses mouth:
http://www.ifpma.org/News/NewsReleaseDetail.aspx?nID=11559
Not much to go on...but better than the second hand stuff from AP and AFP