Health

Swine flu vaccine production behind the schedule
by Zuzana Zelenakova

People in US grow more concerned every day as it becomes clear that swine flu vaccine production will be delayed. By now 120 million doses of the vaccine should have been available according to the government´s schedule. However, there are only 13 million of them so far. Since the break out of the pandemic in April in Mexico about 800 people have died of the H1N1 virus in the United States, 86 of these being children. The inoculation clinics throughout the country are more than crowded these days. Long lines of worried parents and their offspring fill the waiting rooms. "It doesn't look like we're going to be able to make the estimates we had projected by the end of t! his month," said Anne Schuchat, a senior official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), referring to the plans for 40 million doses of the vaccine by the end of October. Now the number from 28 to 30 million seems more likely. The reason for the delay is most probably the variety of different tests to which vaccine has to be subjected before handed over to clinics. Also the chicken egg method due to which the vaccine has been produced is under the fire of doubts and speculations. The technology is about 50 years old and takes some time. The virus needs to be injected into a chicken egg and then reproduced inside, and it is the time of its reproduction or multiplying that is the key problem. Afterwards the egg is cracked, the virus present in the fluid inside is killed and the remaining substance is further tested for its potency. "I think you're going to see these new technologies come on board rapidly, especially given what's happened this year," said Pau! l Radspinner, president and chief executive of FluGen Inc., ab! out quic kly emerging new ways of the valine production.

related story (sgx15688): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_he_me/us_med_swine...

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 7:09 PM