Pandemic Within a Pandemic: Flu Vaccine Production in Trouble

July 22, 2009 (LPAC)— In another sign that the global systemic breakdown crisis is dictating terms to the flu pandemic, several of the world's leading drug makers announced that the virus they are growing to make H1N1 vaccine doesn't yield enough of the antigen needed to protect people.

The problem now, even for the wealthier nations that can afford flu production, is that the back-up facilities for vaccine production do not exist. We report here some reasonable emergency measures proposed by a French specialist. Keep in mind, however, that unless the pandemic disease known as the British empire is wiped out the progress of pandemic is going to accelerate.

Most manufacturers make vaccines by injecting an approved version of the virus strain into chicken eggs, which provide the nutrients for it to grow and multiply. However the yield per egg is turning out to be only one-third to one-half what manufacturers expected.

A Lyon (France)-based specialist noted that other methods to directly produce vaccines from cell cultures exist. Given the fact that A(H1N1) influenza directly attacks lung cells, it would be important to produce vaccine from this type of cells. However, this method is slow, and therefore inadequate in the current emergency. In practice, the low-antigen productivity implies that only some very limited quantities of vaccine will be ready for mid-September. Governments will be further pressed to prioritize what parts of the population receives vaccination. Already, the French government has stopped speaking about mandatory vaccination, for the simple reason that there will not be enough vaccine in time to do it.

The Lyon source agreed that the only solution would be a crash program approach (doubling the number of eggs). Technically, according to this specialist, a massive increase in production could be achieved by suspending other sectors of the pharma-business. In France, he said, this might happen, if things go further the way they're going. But political guts will be required.

The last crash vaccination program, he recalled, was in 1974. A terrible epidemic of meningitis broke out in August, in Brazil, with the possibility that, come autumn (February/March in Brazil), as Carnival approached, major cities like Rio would become cauldrons of contagion. The French Institut Merieux (now Sanofi Pasteur) was the only producer to have a vaccine. To cope with the crisis, Charles and Alain Merieux called on their personnel to scrap their traditional August holidays. In October 1974, the Brazilian Health Minister attended a demonstration, profusely thanking the French, but saying that the problem was that "we don't need 600,000 doses, but 60 million doses!" Everybody asked at that point, if he was joking, or if his French was too elementary. It was no error: 90 million doses would be required.

In record time, Charles and Alain Merieux built a new laboratory in Brazil, and an air bridge was set up between Lyon and Brazil. Some 90 million people were vaccinated in less than a year by a French military-medical deployment, and the pandemic halted. The success of the campaign was confirmed by the CDC of Atlanta.

During the operations, Merieux realized how important it was to get the doctors out of the straitjacket of administrative functioning to make them succeed. The time has come to revive this spirit!