Government has deal for Aussie flu vaccine

The Ministry of Health wants to buy a "prototype" bird flu vaccine of a type being tested in Australia.

Melbourne-based CSL, the only maker of influenza vaccine in the Southern Hemisphere, expects to announce next week the results of its first trial of a human vaccine for H5N1 bird flu.

The virus has killed 79 people in Asia and Europe since 2003. In birds, it has killed or led to the culling of millions, but the virus does not spread easily between humans.

Health authorities fear it could mutate to do so, causing a global outbreak of influenza and killing more than two million people.

These fears have sparked widespread pandemic preparations.

The ministry has a contract with CSL for the supply of eight million doses of vaccine against pandemic influenza, enough for the whole population to have two doses.

Because of manufacturing constraints and CSL's priorities, it would not be available in New Zealand for 15 to 27 weeks after the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic and New Zealand placed its order.

New Zealand is third on CSL's list, after Australia and a small country in the region that neither CSL nor the ministry will name.

Last October, the company started testing a prototype vaccine based on H5N1 virus supplied by the WHO from a patient in Vietnam. It has been tried on 400 people to check the human immune-system response and will be put through further trials.

"We presume we are going to have to do more studies using higher doses and across a greater age range so we can protect as many people as possible," CSL director of public affairs Rachel David said yesterday. "We're hoping to file a dossier for registration with the Therapeutic Goods Administration before the end of the year. There's still a bit of work to be done."

A number of manufacturers around the world are testing prototype H5N1 vaccines. Then if a pandemic of a strain derived from H5N1 occurs, the manufacturing techniques will largely be in place.

A Cabinet paper, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, says a prototype vaccine may also provide limited protection for "critical workforce members" at the start of a pandemic while the definitive vaccine is made.

The ministry is also trying to secure a second source of pandemic vaccine to supplement the CSL contract.

"Work is well advanced on that," a ministry spokesman said last night.

Another Cabinet paper, on the $26 million purchase of a national stockpile of Tamiflu anti-flu medicine and the $6.3 million to buy extra protective gear such as masks, suggests financing these from existing health budgets could risk delays to three hospital projects.

These are the $15 million replacement of Te Atarau acute mental health unit in West Auckland, the planned radiation oncology satellite centre at North Shore Hospital and the extension of Burwood Hospital in Christchurch to permit extra hip and joint replacement surgery.

The ministry spokesman said the anti-flu stock was financed from the health budget, but this had had no impact on hospital building projects.


Trial run

The prototype bird flu vaccine is made using methods similar to those for the production of seasonal flu vaccine. The intention is to answer questions such as:
* What is the appropriate volume of antigen from the killed virus to put into the vaccine?
* Is it more effective when aluminium phosphate "adjuvant" is added to stimulate the immune system?
* What is the ideal number of doses per person?