Vaccines for Everyone in Latest Bird Flu Plan

By REBECCA SMITH

PLANS to vaccinate everyone against a flu pandemic were announced by the Government today.

Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said Britain would be at the front of the queue in getting an effective vaccine against a killer flu.

Pharmaceutical companies are being asked to bid for a contract to deliver 120million doses of a vaccine as soon as one can be developed.

It will mean everyone will be able to have two shots – the normal dose needed for a vaccine to be effective.

Work to develop a specific vaccine could take six months. But experts cannot begin work on the inoculations until a pandemic strain emerges from the current form of bird flu.

The disease cannot yet spread easily from person to person yet, but the fear is that it could mutate to do so.

Today’s announcement means the UK will already hold contracts with manufacturers to take first delivery of the vaccine. A Department of Health (DoH) spokesman said: “It means we are buying up capacity in advance.”

An advert will go out asking companies to put in quotes on how much the vaccine will cost and how long they think it will take to develop.

Sir Liam also said that information packs will be going out to GPs today to help them develop their own plans on how to cope with a pandemic. They will contain leaflets for patients and posters for waiting rooms as well as a factsheet to help doctors answer patients’ questions.

The DoH has already put a contract out to tender for between two and three million doses of H5N1 vaccine. This would work against the current form of bird flu which has killed 60 people in Asia.

The hope is that this could be used to offer some protection against a pandemic strain while a better targeted vaccine is under development.

In addition the Government has ordered of 14.5million courses of Tamiflu capsules, which can be taken by patients suffering from flu to reduce the severity of the disease.

Experts including Sir Liam have said it is inevitable a flu pandemic will emerge and could kill more than 50,000 people in Britain alone. The most credible course of events for many scientists will be bird flu mutating to spread between humans. But it is not known when or where such a pandemic strain might emerge.

Concern has grown in the last week after cases of the potentially lethal H5N1 strain were confirmed in Romania, Turkey and Russia.

Since 2003, about 120 people worldwide have been diagnosed with H5N1. Bird flu has also been confirmed in Greece but it is not yet known if this is H5N1.

Yesterday Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Europe was responding “swiftly and efficiently”.

He was speaking after a meeting of EU foreign ministers was briefed by European health commissioner Markos Kyprianou. Mr Straw said: “We want to reassure people across Europe about this – we are working together as closely as we can.”

A two-day meeting of EU health ministers starting in Hertfordshire tomorrow will also tackle the subject of bird flu. Mr Kyprianou has called on drug companies to step up production of first-line antivirals such as Tamiflu.

HUNDREDS of chickens and geese have died in an area south of Moscow, raising fears of a new outbreak in Russia. If confirmed as bird flu, the deaths in the Tula region would mark the first time the virus has appeared west of the Urals in Russia.

SOME 2,600 birds have been found dead in northern China. The birds were found in near Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia region. They were infected by the deadly H5N1 virus but the government insists: “The epidemic is under control.”

TESTS on 2,000 carcasses collected across Romania show the bird flu virus has been limited to the eastern Danube delta region. The minister for agriculture said: “It’s good that we don’t have sign of outbreaks towards the western part of the country.”