Money Matters, Simplified.
H1N1 vaccine not available until October
by Camilla Abad - May 29, 2009 - comments
A vaccine against the H1N1/swine flu virus will possibly be available by October, CDC officials report
Atlanta, May 29: The earliest possible time a vaccine for the pandemic H1N1, or commonly known as the swine flu virus, could be available is by October this year, U.S. health officials reported on Thursday.
Dr. Anne Schuchat, interim deputy director for science and public health program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), explained, "If everything went really well it would not be until the fall before a vaccine would become available. We are saying at this point not before October."
Production of the vaccine
Different vaccine manufacturers have already been asked to come up with a vaccine for the H1N1 virus, but several tests and clinical trials still have to be made before the mass production of the new vaccine can be made.
Some of the tests that need to be done before the vaccine is approved for widespread use are regarding what dose or how many times it will be given. They will also need to study if the vaccine leads to different results depending on the age of the person it was given to.
“There will be decisions later in the summer or early fall about whether to actually finish the vaccine and how large-scale the production might be, and whether or not an immunization program is going to be recommended for some or much of the population,” Dr. Schuchat said.
The H1N1 flu virus
The H1N1 strain was found to behave similarly to the seasonal H1N1 flu but a difference lies in the population they affect. According to Dr. Schuchat, "Seasonal H1N1 often causes more disease in younger people, compared with the other strains that can be more common in older people."
A possible explanation to this is that older people might have developed the immunity to the strain because they have been exposed to an H1N1 strain which spread before 1957.
The pandemic
The availability of the vaccine could provide a possible solution to this pandemic the world is experiencing. In the United States alone, the CDC has reported 8,585 cases of the disease which resulted in 12 deaths.
In the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that the virus has affected 11,000 people from 41 countries. Tamiflu and Relenza are two antiviral drugs to which the virus responds.