EU braced for crisis as flu pandemic threatens

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 28/07/05

The European Commission is preparing member states for an influenza pandemic in the wake of events that experts say make an outbreak more likely than ever.

Before the end of the year, the Commission will hold a command-post exercise to test communication between national authorities in case of a flu outbreak as well as possible terrorist attacks.

"In view of...current strong warnings by the World Health Organisation (WHO) of an imminent influenza pandemic, I consider that it is essential to conduct these exercises," said the EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou.

Commission officials are drafting a report on Europe's readiness to deal with health threats, which will be discussed by national governments in Council of Ministers working groups after the summer-break.

In October, a workshop is to be organised between the WHO and the EU's Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which will address any weaknesses in national plans.

Earlier this month a 38-year-old man and his two daughters died from bird-transmitted flu in Indonesia and on 21 July the first cases of avian flu were reported in Russia.

In June experts at the WHO warned that the H5N1 influenza strain of avian flu had shown changes that were likely to make it more infectious to humans. A pandemic will follow when the disease begins to be passed from human to human but how long this may take is hard to predict.

Some governments have begun to stockpile anti-virals, a post-infection treatment which has a longer shelf-life than vaccines and could stave off a human catastrophe.

But vaccination is vital to combat the disease effectively. To develop a new vaccine, companies first need to develop a prototype, which can take between 18 months and two years. After that, the final vaccine can be ready in another six months.

Pharmaceutical companies are warning that EU governments are not investing enough in prototypes. "Some companies are on the starting blocks but we need more investment to be adapted to the imminent race in a flu pandemic," said Luc Hessel, European director of medicines and public affairs at the vaccine division of French pharmaceuticals company Sanofi-Aventis.

"In the US, Canada and Japan, the government is funding research into prototype vaccines but here in Europe we are still lacking critical funds," he said.

European Voice understands that, so far, France, the UK and Italy have launched tenders to supply a limited amount of prototype vaccines.

The EU is waiving licence fees for pandemic vaccines and reimbursing some government investment in antiviral drugs.

Developing a vaccine is not the only issue. Production capacity is limited and fragile. There are only three major producers of flu vaccines - Sanofi-Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline and the US company Chiron, with a total global capacity for the seasonal vaccine of 300 million doses, two-thirds produced in Europe.

Each year the WHO predicts the most dangerous flu strain and the pharmaceutical companies produce a vaccine accordingly.

But pharma company sources said that they could not produce huge quantities of vaccine only to throw them away if they were never used. They, supported by the WHO and the Commission, are putting pressure on governments to increase their annual orders of vaccines.

Hessel pointed out that new factories could not be built overnight. Last month GlaxoSmithKline announced it would invest €94 million in doubling vaccine production at a plant in Dresden to 60 million doses annually by 2010. But on 15 July, Chiron lost two-thirds of its expected 12 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine because of bacterial contamination found at a production plant in Germany.

Article reports on preparations across the European Union for an outbreak of an influenza pandemic which experts say was more likely than ever.