Bush urges companies to produce bird flu vaccine
- From: "Chim" <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 8 Oct 2005 03:09:11 -0700
Bush urges companies to produce bird flu vaccine
By Maggie Fox, Reuters
WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush asked vaccine
makers on Friday to do their utmost to boost flu vaccine production,
while officials from 80 countries and the United Nations wrapped up a
meeting on ways to fight a feared influenza pandemic.
Neither session provided any immediate solutions, but U.S. officials
said they served to raise the profile of the potential crisis and start
setting up the networks needed to deal with outbreaks.
"I think what this is, is ratcheting this up," said Dr. Bruce Gellin,
vaccine coordinator at the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services
and coordinator of the federal influenza preparedness plan.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia
and infected 116 people, killing 60 of them.
If it acquires the ability to pass easily from person to person, it
could kill millions in the space of a few months, experts say. The
world does not have enough vaccine to fight off annual flu, let alone a
pandemic of avian flu, and part of the problem is that very few
companies make the vaccine.
Antiviral drugs can reduce the severity of a flu attack, but are in
short supply.
Democratic members of Congress expressed concern about this and asked
Bush to detail his preparations.
"While other nations have ordered enough antiviral medication to treat
between 20 and 40 percent of their populations, the federal government
has only ordered enough to treat less than 2 percent of Americans,"
Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and five colleagues wrote in a letter
to Bush.
Last year there was a shortage of annual flu vaccine. Congress and HHS
agencies have been working to find ways to lure companies back into the
business of making it.
So Bush met with the chief executive officers of some of the top
corporate makers of vaccines.
They included Richard Clark, president and CEO of Merck & Co. Inc. ;
Robert Essner, chairman, president and CEO of Wyeth ; Jean-Pierre
Garnier, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline ; David Mott, president and CEO of
MedImmune ; Howard Pien, chairman, president and CEO of Chiron Corp. ;
and David Williams, CEO of sanofi pasteur, the vaccine unit of
Sanofi-Aventis .
"We talked about what's necessary to get to the goal of having enough
vaccine in the shortest possible amount of time," Health and Human
Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, who attended the meeting, told
reporters.
"I firmly believe that the efforts the United States puts into place
now also will contribute to improved pandemic preparedness worldwide,"
sanofi pasteur's Williams said in a statement later.
"The best preparation for a possible influenza pandemic is to help
ensure the public is aware of the current, annual threat of seasonal
influenza and the need for vaccination -- starting with this season --
with a goal toward universal immunization before a pandemic arrives,"
Williams added.
Only a few blocks away, the U.S. State Department wrapped up a meeting
of diplomats and United Nations experts.
"This initiative on the part of the United States government has
solidly placed the avian influenza and the very real threat of a
pandemic very high on the global agenda," said Kang Kyoung-wha,
director general of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's international
organizations bureau.
Leavitt was preparing to leave on Saturday for a weeklong visit to
Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
"We have advanced offers to a number of governments in the region to
partner with them in the development of a number of assets," Leavitt
said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, said one carrot the United States and other
countries could offer in exchange for cooperation would be help in
developing a better public health infrastructure.
Fauci, who will accompany Leavitt, said one possible plan being worked
on would be to test antiviral drugs in Vietnam, where there have been
91 human cases of H5N1 infection and 41 deaths.
(With additional reporting by Caren Bohan, Lisa Richwine and Paul
Eckert)
10/07/05 23:34 ET
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