Record Preparations Against Flu

A massive quantity of 132 million flu-vaccine doses is expected to be arranged for the impending influenza season in the United States this year. The number is the highest ever and may be further elevated if another flu vaccine manufacturing company joins in the ranks of already existing manufacturers.

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine unit of Sanofi-Aventis, plans to provide 50 million doses while Novartis AG said it would have 40 million doses, GlaxoSmithKline Plc said it would make available some 30 million to 35 million doses and MedImmune said it would have 7 million doses.

The former three make flu shots while MedImmune Vaccines Inc. manufactures FluMist, a nasal mist recommended only for healthy people between ages 5 and 49.

An Australian company, CSL Biotherapies may also provide flu- vaccines but is still waiting for an approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for which it applied last month.

Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been urging for extended vaccinations and believe that each year; over 200 million Americans should get vaccinated to avoid perilous consequences of the seasonal influenza, which, on an average takes the lives of about 36,000 people in the U.S. flu season besides sending some 200,000 to the hospital. So the companies are being encouraged to push their capacity to make influenza vaccines for the U.S. market.

"To protect people, we need more vaccine," said Dr. Jeanne Santoli, deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's immunization services division.

The process of making flu-vaccines is complicated and risky as it involves chicken eggs and months of incubation and not many companies are interested. Also the viruses mutate each year, so the batch must be mixed up fresh.

"We are trying to make a vaccine to be prepared for an epidemic of influenza ... but we don't know which strains are in the epidemic, we don't know how virulent those strains will be and we don't know when the epidemic will peak," said Dr. Jeanne Santoli of CDC's immunization program.

Unlike in 2004- when the flu-vaccine supply went short, 120.9 million doses were produced for the 2006-07 season, of which around 17 million went waste, the CDC said. Hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccine may go waste, the consumption may be less but they must be equipped.