How to immunize enough people against the flu

An article in The Economist addresses the issue of improved manufacturing techniques to improve the supply of measles vaccines in the future and adjuvents to make existing vaccines go further. It states:

Could more innovative manufacturing techniques help? One promising approach involves growing vaccines not in eggs but in cell cultures, which is speedy and easily scaled up. Another is to add adjuvants, which are catalysts that improve the efficacy of a vaccine and reduce the amount of active ingredient required.

A number of companies have been hoping to get such technologies to the market by 2011 or 2012, and some might be able to help with any shortfall should there be a pandemic later this year. Anthony Fauci, head of America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says the American government has been funding many such firms in preparation for bioterrorism and pandemics. But he points out that none of the firms has so far got a pandemic flu vaccine past safety trials. “They are not ready for prime-time,” he says.

Yet desperate times may lead to desperate measures. Cell-based manufacturing is already used to make vaccines against many other diseases, so it might win rapid approval for flu. European regulators have been more enthusiastic than American ones about allowing adjuvants in flu vaccines. Mexican officials are reportedly in discussions with biotech firms to build flexible vaccine-facilities quickly. The WHO this week called such novel approaches a risky “leap of faith”.

Comment: Of course, not using such approaches in the face of a possible pandemic is also risky. Moreover, more research and development will almost surely mitigate those risks in the future. JAD