Sep 19, 2009 10:30 am US/Eastern
First H1N1 Vaccines To Be Nasal Spray
WHO: H1N1 Vaccine Supply To Fall Short
Track The H1N1, Or Swine Flu, Virus: CDC | WHO
WASHINGTON (AP) ―
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A couple wears face masks as protection against the influenza A(H1N1) (swine flu) virus contagion, as they wait at the Municipal Hospital Souza Aguiar in Rio de Janeiro, on July 23, 2009.
Vanderlei Ameida/AFP/Getty Images
The first doses of swine flu vaccine may all be the nasal spray version, government health officials said Friday.
The government has said a trickle of vaccine will be available in early October, but on Friday they defined the size of that trickle - an estimated 3.4 million doses.
Currently it looks like all of them will be a nasal spray vaccine that is approved only for healthy people ages 2 to 49, said Dr. Jay Butler, an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The nasal spray, called FluMist, is not recommended for some of the people most in danger of severe swine flu complications. That includes pregnant women, children younger than 2, and people with asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases.
However, it's possible that some vaccine shots will become available by the first week of October as well, said Butler, chief of the CDC's swine flu vaccine task force.
Flu shots are made of killed influenza virus, while FluMist is a live but weakened strain. The nasal spray is only approved in the United States, and is made by the Maryland-based MedImmune, an AstraZeneca PLC subsidiary. Four other companies are making flu shots for the U.S.
The initial vaccine doses will go to up to 90,000 sites, including schools and clinics, across the U.S. State health departments will determine which offices and clinics get the shots, and whether health care workers or others get the first doses, Butler said at a CDC press conference Friday.
The government has ordered 195 million doses but may order more if there's enough demand, health officials have said. Typically fewer than 100 million Americans get a flu vaccine every year, and it's unclear whether swine flu will prompt much more demand.
A recent Associated Press-GfK poll found 57 percent of people said they were likely to get it.
WHO Says Vaccince Supply To Fall Short
Global production of swine flu vaccines will be "substantially less" than the previous maximum forecast of 94 million doses a week, the World Health Organization said Friday.
The number of doses produced in a year will therefore fall short of the 4.9 billion doses the global health body previously hoped could be available for the pandemic, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told reporters in Geneva.
Production will be lower because some manufacturers are still turning out vaccines for seasonal flu - an illness that can be serious in sick and elderly people, Hartl said.
Production problems also have reduced the weekly output of pandemic vaccine, he said.
The United States, France, Britain and six other countries announced Thursday that they will share part of their vaccine supply with poorer countries.
WHO welcomed the move Friday, saying it "demonstrates the commitment of these countries to fairness in sharing of scare resources."
"Current supplies of pandemic vaccine are inadequate for a world population in which virtually everyone is susceptible to infection by a new and readily contagious virus," it said.
WHO says that in theory all the world's 6.3 billion people should receive at least one dose of vaccine against the pandemic strain of H1N1 - also known as swine flu - to ensure comprehensive protection against the disease, which has so far killed some 3,500 people.
(© 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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