NZ will keep flu vaccine priority despite WHO request - official

The World Health Organisation is asking countries such as New Zealand which have pre-ordered shipments of pandemic flu vaccine to share them with under-developed nations.

But a senior New Zealand health official today signalled that the country will hang onto its priority placing in the queue for any vaccine, though it will share with Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau.

New Zealand's director of public health, Mark Jacobs, announced in 2005 that the nation has been "guaranteed" a vaccine against pandemic influenza, through a formal agreement with an Australian manufacturer.

"We have a formal arrangement with Australia's CSL Ltd - the only influenza vaccine manufacturer in the Southern Hemisphere - which gives us a guaranteed supply if we need a pandemic vaccine," he said.

New Zealand expected to get access to a pandemic vaccine within four to six months of the World Health Organisation declaring the existence of a pandemic.

New Zealand is third on the priority list for CSL - after Australia and a small country which put in its order before NZ - and has a contract for supply of eight million doses so that each person can have two doses.

Health Minister Tony Ryall was asked what stance the Government will take to sharing that vaccine, but referred the question to the MOH.

But Steve Brazier, the ministry's national coordinator of emergency planning, said assisting other countries to purchase vaccine "after our order has been filled" is a bigger question than New Zealand can answer by itself.

"The priority of the Ministry of Health is and always will be the health and well-being of New Zealanders," he said.

"In the event that this strain mutates and becomes more virulent, a vaccine can help contain the spread, save lives, reduce the economic and social impact of a pandemic, and get the country re-started faster.

"New Zealand has a vaccine supplier because we organised one many years ago".

Mr Brazier said New Zealand's small population meant that any action it took itself on vaccines would have only limited effect.

New Zealand had already provided supplies of Tamiflu to the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, and information, advice and substantial financial support to strengthen pandemic preparedness across the Pacific region.

Marie-Paule Kieny, director of WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research, said an expert group will hold a teleconference on May 14 to discuss whether drug companies should switch their production from regular flu vaccine to pandemic vaccine.

WHO expects swine flu to spread to at least one-third of the world's population within the next year and has said a full-fledged pandemic remains possible.

In two weeks, the flu jumped from isolated reports in the USA. and Mexico to confirmed infections in 2371 people in 24 countries, with 44 deaths.

Vaccine producers can only make one kind of flu vaccine at a time: seasonal flu vaccine or pandemic vaccine, and the WHO may tell vaccine makers to switch to making a pandemic one.

But that decision means WHO has to guess whether the world will need pandemic vaccine more than it needs vaccine for regular seasonal flu which flu kills up to 500,000 people a year.

Because production takes months, a decision needs to be made soon, Associated Press reported.

WHO hopes to find out next week how many doses are "locked-in" by those countries, and how much spare capacity manufacturers still have. The world's vaccine producers could turn out between 1 billion and 2 billion doses of pandemic vaccine a year.

- NZPA