India to make vaccine in time for flu's 2nd coming

NEW DELHI: India has decided to go ahead with mass scale production of a vaccine against H1N1 influenza as soon as it receives the seed stock -- a strain of the virus on which the vaccine will be based.
In a meeting on Tuesday among the Indian Council of Medical Research, health ministry officials and vaccine manufacturers like Serum Institute, Panacea, Bharat Biotech and Sanofi, it was decided that the Centre would immediately ask WHO and CDC Atlanta to send the seed stock for companies to develop the technology to create the vaccine before the world is possibly hit by the second wave of the H1N1 pandemic.
Marie Paule Kieny, WHO's director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, had recently said that the seed will be available to manufacturers by the second half of May.
Speaking to TOI, ICMR director-general Dr V M Katoch said the government will hold another meeting in 10 days to constitute a core team to begin research work on the vaccine.
By then, companies too have been asked to "prepare their manufacturing plans and their intent on how much they can manufacture and in how much time".
Kieny had earlier told TOI that it has been funding the Serum Institute (SII) to help them acquire technology to start producing influenza vaccines.
"Similarly we will ask other Indian vaccine manufacturers to comply to WHO's good manufacturing practices standards so that they too can manufacture the vaccine," Dr Katoch said.
SII's executive director Dr S S Jadhav had told TOI earlier that WHO had given funds worth $2.2 million last year and a matching amount this year to develop the technology to produce influenza vaccines.
"WHO has been building capacity across the world to produce an emergency vaccine against the H5N1 bird flu virus if a pandemic broke out. They gave us the H5N1 pandemic strain. We are making the seasonal influenza vaccine as a proof of concept that we can handle the virus. In another three months time, a few thousand doses of the preliminary vaccine will be ready. WHO can now trust us with the H1N1 virus," Dr Jadhav said.
According to WHO, a vaccine against H1N1 flu may be tested in people in a couple of months. Creating an effective vaccine -- between the time the virus is isolated and the first doses are made available to the general public -- would take between 4 and 6 months time.
"We estimate that around two billion doses of the pandemic vaccine will be available in one years time," Dr Kieny said.
No effective vaccine is presently available against the new influenza A H1N1 virus.
A vaccine prepares the body's immune system to defend against an infection. For the vaccine to protect against influenza, the virus in it has to match the circulating wild-type virus, as closely.
Since this H1N1 virus is new, there is no vaccine currently available made with this particular virus.
Scientific evidence suggests that the already available seasonal influenza vaccines will confer little or no protection against H1N1.