Millions of Flu Doses over looked

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Millions of Flu Vaccine Doses Overlooked

 

By Steve Mitchell, United Press International

 

WASHINGTON (UPI) -- When U.S. public health officials announced last

week the supply of influenza vaccine had been exhausted, they

overlooked one manufacturer that still has millions of doses

available. MedImmune, of Gaithersburg, Md., the biotech company that

manufactures the new nasal flu vaccine FluMist, says it has about 4

million doses ready and waiting. Moreover, this untapped vaccine

appears to offer better protection from this year's virulent flu

strain than the other vaccines.

 

The public rushed to obtain flu medicines in record numbers this

year, spurred by an earlier-than-usual onset of flu season and the

deaths of several children from the disease in Colorado, Texas and New

Mexico. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta,

which expects this flu season to be particularly severe, said last

Friday the two major vaccine manufacturers, Aventis Pasteur of

Swiftwater, Pa., and Chiron Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., had

distributed all of the 83 million doses of vaccine they produced this

year.

 

" Current reports indicate that most available flu vaccine supplies

have now been distributed to doctors, clinics, health departments and

other providers, " the agency said in a written statement. However,

MedImmune has from 3.5 million to 4.5 million doses of its vaccine in

stock, company spokeswoman Jamie Lacey told United Press

International. The company is " working with CDC and doing what we can

to address the issue " of the vaccine shortage, Lacey said. This is the

first year FluMist, administered by a spray into the nose, has been

available. In the past, the only option for receiving flu vaccine was

an inoculation delivered by a syringe.

 

FluMist is approved by the Food and Drug Administration only for

administration to healthy people between ages 5 and 49, so it is not

an option for the elderly, who are the most at risk of developing

serious complications -- including death -- from the flu. However,

vaccinating children -- particularly school-aged kids who are old

enough to receive FluMist -- could help protect the elderly

indirectly, Dr. Robert Belshe, director of Saint Louis University's

Center for Vaccine Development, told UPI.

 

" The elderly have been the focus of vaccination campaigns, but in

recent years we have come to understand the importance of school-aged

children in transmission of the flu, " Belshe said. Japanese health

officials reported in a study published in 2001 in the New England

Journal of Medicine that the number of elderly patients dying from the

flu each year jumped by about 43,000 when the Japanese government

stopped vaccinating school-aged children in the 1990s.

 

The CDC does not have information on the percentage of U.S. children

who receive the flu vaccine each year, but Belshe noted anecdotal

reports from pediatricians indicate " coverage is very, very low. " In

older people between ages 18 and 49, who also could benefit from

FluMist, inoculation rates usually are less than 20 percent, according

to CDC statistics.

 

Although public health officials have overlooked FluMist, it protects

just as well as the needle-based vaccines. Recent data indicate it

might even offer better protection from the virulent flu strain

proliferating this year, which is called the Fujian strain and appears

to be causing more severe symptoms disease than usual. The Fujian

strain emerged too late to be included in this year's vaccine supply.

However, FluMist differs from the vaccine shots because it contains a

live-but-weakened strain of the flu virus. Generally, live virus

vaccines induce a better immune response than vaccines containing dead

viral material and FluMist is no exception.

 

MedImmune conducted a study in 48 children and found 67 percent of

those who received FluMist exhibited a significant rise in antibodies

against the Fujian strain, compared to only 4 percent of those who

received the shots. Belshe -- who said he has no financial ties to

MedImmune -- noted those preliminary indications are similar to

results he obtained in a trial he conducted for the National

Institutes of Health during the 1998 flu season. In that year, as this

year, a flu virus strain emerged that was not contained in the

vaccine.

 

The study, which involved 1,600 children, showed FluMist was about

86-percent effective in protecting kids from the new strain, Belshe

said. This is a much higher level of protection than the needle-based

vaccines, which typically provide only about 60-percent to 70-percent

protection in kids, he added. Belshe noted it cannot be ascertained

whether those who receive FluMist are better protected from the new

Fujian strain, but he added, " That's a possibility. " Asked if the CDC

considered FluMist to offer enhanced protection from the Fujian

strain, agency spokesman Curtis Allen said, " I don't know if we have

the data to say that. "

 

Allen added that CDC recommends FluMist as " an available option " for

healthy people in the age range for which the vaccine is approved.

FluMist can be two or three times more costly than conventional shots,

but MedImmune spokeswoman Lacey said consumers could get a coupon good

for a $25 rebate from the company Web site, flumist.com. The Web site

also directs consumers to health facilities offering the vaccine in

their area.

 

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Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved.