Singapore to buy 2.6m doses of bird flu vaccine

It will have enough for 1.3m people; those at high risk, kids to get priority
Salma Khalik, Straits Times 17 Feb 09;

SINGAPORE is stepping up its defences against a possible bird flu pandemic with the purchase of enough vaccines for 1.3 million people.

Vaccines give the best protection against the flu, but the one for H5N1 or bird flu became available only in 2007.

The original defence against a bird flu pandemic was to give the more than 50,000 'essential' people, such as doctors and policemen, six weeks' supply of Tamiflu, an antiviral drug that reduces the effects of the illness by preventing the bug from multiplying.

But there has been growing resistance to the drug recently, which could mean it might be less effective in the event of a bird flu pandemic.

This past winter, the northern hemisphere has thrown up a 15 per cent resistance to the medicine in another flu strain - the H1N1 - up from 1 per cent the previous winter.

The vaccine Singapore will be spending tens of millions of dollars to buy is targeted at the H5N1 or bird flu virus. It is not effective against other strains of flu. So if the next pandemic is not the H5N1, the vaccines would be useless.

This is why Singapore is also increasing its stockpile of Tamiflu, an antiviral drug that works for all flu strains.

By the end of this year, Singapore will have 1.7 million courses, up from the original 1.05 million courses. Each course consists of 10 capsules which are taken over five days. It also has 50,000 courses of Relenza, another antiviral.

The United States has stockpiled about 26 million doses of the H5N1 vaccine. Countries like Switzerland and Ireland have enough for their entire population. Singapore expects to get its 2.6 million doses within six months.

For the vaccine to be effective, people need to get two doses three weeks apart.

The plan is to start vaccinating the moment the World Health Organisation declares an increase in human-to-human transmission.

For the moment, these transmissions remain rare.

A Ministry of Health spokesman said the vaccines will be given to essential staff, as well as children and people at high risk, such as transplant patients.

She added: 'A person who is vaccinated may still suffer from flu-like illness as the vaccine is not 100 per cent protective. Such a person will then be given Tamiflu as treatment.'

Infectious disease experts say it is just a matter of time before another deadly influenza or flu pandemic sweeps the world. More than 40 million people died in the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.

The pandemics of 1957 and 1968 spanned the globe in just six months, killing two million and over one million people respectively.

Should the next pandemic be caused by the H5N1 or bird flu virus, the results could be lethal.

More than half the 407 people who have been hit by bird flu so far have died of it.

salma@sph.com.sg


Should the next pandemic be caused by the H5N1 or bird flu virus, the results could be lethal. More than half the 407 people who have been hit by bird flu so far have died of it.

# The vaccine Singapore is stockpiling is targeted at the H5N1 or bird flu virus.

# For it to be effective, people need two doses three weeks apart.