India may have swine flu vaccine by September
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
India may come out with a vaccine for the dreaded influenza A(H1N1) infection by September, health ministry officials said Tuesday.
The Health Ministry is working with the Serum Institute of India, Bharat Biotech and Panacea Biotech to develop the vaccine for swine flu, they said.
"Two of these companies have told us that they will be able to provide the vaccine by September while the third one hasn't given any time frame yet," Director General of Health Services (DGHS) RK Srivastava told reporters here.
He said the companies were not given any deadline for developing vaccine.
The Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the Indian Virology Institute have already isolated the swine flu virus and started work on developing the vaccine.
India Monday reported first swine flu death in Pune as a 14-year-old girl succumbed to it. As many as 558 swine cases have been reported in the country and of these, 470 patients have been discharged after treatment.
Doctors and experts on Tuesday warned that the H1N1 infections in the country could increase as the virus spreads faster during the monsoon and winter.
Experts said people need to be more vigilant and take precautions as the swine flu virus has entered the country.
"Surveillance and screening has to be given high priority. The virus has been mild so far, but it is a well-known fact that it could change its behaviour. And if it changes, then the virus could be more virulent," Randeep Guleria, head of medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), told IANS.
"The swine flu virus can spread rapidly during monsoon and winter months. Therefore, we could see more infections in the coming months. It could be serious," he added.
Guleria warned that there were chances the virus could spread in "clusters".
"People need to be more vigilant as the virus has entered the country. The chances are now that it would spread in a community or in clusters like schools or localities," he added.
The professor said if people living in a community or a cluster exhibit similar illness symptoms, they should be screened or tested for the virus so that the anti-flu Tamiflu medicine can be given in time.
S. Chatterjee, senior consultant in the internal medicine department in Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, agreed with Guleria, saying there is a "possibility that the second strain of virus might turn lethal in winter".
"The best thing is to follow precautions and early diagnosis of flu," he said.
According to Chatterjee, since there is a possibility of the number of cases rising, the government should identify private hospitals for treatment.
"Government hospitals alone cannot handle the swine flu cases if there is an outbreak, and so the government should identify private hospitals to handle such cases," he said.
Sunil Kumar Lal, assistant scientist at the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), said: "There is a possibility of the virus mutating as it circulates. We have to watch the virus closely. Scientists across the globe are working to develop a vaccine for the flu that would be effective during the second wave."
The ICGEB is an international organisation involved in advanced research and training in molecular biology and biotechnology.
Senior epidemiologist and executive director of the Indian Clinical Epidemiology Network (IndiaCLEN) Narendra Arora said no one at the moment knows "how lethal the virus could be in future".
IndiaCLEN is a cluster of seven regional clinical epidemiology units that are members of the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN).
"It is the history of the flu pandemics that is making scientists believe that the second wave of the flu could be deadly. Flu pandemics historically come in waves, often getting worse as they go and there is a likelihood that swine flu may come back in a more severe form," added Arora.
Citing the example of the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic, which was considered the worst of all time that had left 40 million people dead, Arora said: "The Spanish flu started with a mild wave followed by a deadly second wave later in the year," he said.
According to experts, surveillance is important to halt the mass spread of the virus and the country needs to prepare a database of the flu-affected people.
"Every season 10 percent of the population is affected with common flu, and if the number in the coming season rises to 25-30 percent then we need to worry. We have to have a database of the people affected with swine flu in the country to check against any unusual break," said Naresh Gupta, senior doctor at Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi.
The swine flu pandemic is the first since the Hong Kong flu pandemic in 1968, which killed one million people worldwide.
Glaxo’s Swine Flu Vaccine Available Come September:
Tripling production of Relenza, drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) the swine flu treatment means the anti swine flu vaccine should be ready for distribution come September.
UK's largest drug company has made several announcements about its ability to produce 190-m doses of Relenza per year, within months. Its new disposable anti-viral face mask that worked against all previous strains of bird and swine flu, has also been approved. However, it has yet to be tested against the current strain of swine flu though Glaxo executives are confident it will also be effective against the new flu strain.
Even though the vaccine's delivery does not start till later this year, GSK has already received orders for 195-m doses and is in discussions over further orders with over 50 governments.
The UK Government has placed an order for 60-million doses of the vaccine, roughly priced at £6 per dose. Though the vaccine costs just a fraction of £6 to produce, GSK says it has made an investment of over £1.5-billion in developing it, dating back to 1991.
As the market reacted to the broader results including falling sales, largely in the US market, GSK saw its shares drop slightly to £11.53 despite the focus on its swine flu products. USA, GSK's largest market, has seen sustained competition from generic drug makers as soon as GSK products came off the patent.
However GSK's consumer healthcare business e. g. brands like Horlicks and Lucozade, saw a 9% rise in sales to £1.2-billion, as the company announced its acquisition of Stiefel Laboratories for $2.9-billion, a part of its plan to create one of the largest dermatology businesses.
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