Once a pandemic strikes, it will take 22 weeks from the time the virus is identified to get the first vaccine
Salma Khalik, Straits Times 22 Jun 08;
Kuala Lumpur - Don't count on a flu vaccine being ready in time for the next pandemic. It will not be, said several infectious diseases experts.
Speaking at the four-day International Congress on Infectious Diseases that ends today, they urged countries to plan for alternatives, or be caught totally off-guard when hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people, fall ill within weeks because of a dangerous new virus.
While their solutions might differ, the specialists are united in predicting that a pandemic will come, and that its effects will be devastating - even when precautions are in place. More so if countries leave their planning till the pandemic is knocking on their doors.
Dr Jonathan Van Tam of Britain's University of Nottingham said a typical pandemic would last 17 weeks and peak in eight. But it takes 22 weeks from the time the virus is identified to get the first vaccine.
Then more time is needed for it to be distributed. By then, most of the people who are at risk would already have fallen ill, or even died.
Like other speakers, Dr Van Tam suggested that countries stock up on vaccines for the H5N1 avian flu virus, to be used at the first signs of a pandemic.
He said yesterday that there is 'strong scientific rationale' pointing to H5N1 as the source of the next pandemic.
Since 2003, bird flu has infected 385 people in 16 countries. With 243 deaths, the killing power of this virus is high, with fewer than four in 10 surviving it.
Last Friday, Sir Roy Anderson of London's Imperial College argued that quarantine, which worked well to contain Sars in 2003, will not work in a flu pandemic.
The incubation period for the flu virus is much shorter, he said. By the time a patient shows symptoms, he would already have infected others.
Dr Julie Gerberding, director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), also scoffed at the idea of closing off borders to protect people.
Calling it a 'ridiculous' act that would be 'completely unsuccessful', she added that it would do more damage by stopping the movement of medicines to people in need.
She warned a packed hall at KL's Convention Centre against complacency, which she feels has set in after the Sars scare five years ago.
'Until it happens in your backyard, it's easy to pretend that that was then,' she said.
People have put the fear of a pandemic on the back burner, and surveillance and planning are no longer a priority for many, she said, cautioning that a pandemic would be catastrophic.
Asked about the three weeks it took for Indonesia to report its latest cases of bird flu in humans, she said: 'We can't afford to have this (new) virus move in human populations undetected and unreported.'
The safety of the world depends on the weakest link, she said. So to keep the world safe, this link has to be strengthened.
This is why the CDC has deployed its experts in all countries which have had human cases of bird flu, to provide technical and other assistance.
Dr N. Shindo, who heads the World Health Organisation's global influenza programme, said WHO has stockpiled about five million doses of flu medicine to be used in countries where a pandemic might start, to try to push back its spread to the rest of the world.
