Health officials testify before House committee
Pandemic flu preparations already are under way, said government health officials who testified in mid-April before a congressional subcommittee.
"The threat of a pandemic is now felt to be greater than it has in decades," said Bruce Gellin, the director of the national vaccine program at the Department of Health and Human Services. "This is in large part because of the highly pathogenic bird flu, an influenza virus classified as H5N1, which is established and endemic in many different species of birds across Asia."
Most alarmingly, researchers have established that the same strain has crossed into 74 people in the past year, killing two-thirds. And those figures "probably represent the tip of the iceberg," said Julie Gerberding, head of CDC, who also sat before the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.
In an effort to head off that danger, testing of vaccines and antiviral therapies is in progress under the watch of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Its director, Anthony Fauci, told the subcommittee that initial clinical testing of an H5N1 vaccine produced by Sanofi-Pasteur is under way, and that the Swiftwater, PA-based company is under contract to produce 2 million doses of the product.
Other clinical trials of the same vaccine will be held later this year, and simultaneous research on three attenuated H5N1 vaccine strains is being conducted, as are studies on an attenuated vaccine strain of H9N2, another avian virus that has jumped into humans.
Also, since the antiviral drug Tamiflu (oseltamivir, from F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.) is effective against H5N1, the federal government has stockpiled 2.3 million units. In its budget request for the coming fiscal year, HHS requested an additional $120 million to support its pandemic preparedness activities, such as ensuring a year-round supply of chicken eggs to provide for a secure vaccine supply and shifting manufacturing to cell culture technologies.
Concurrent with those actions, Gerberding stressed the importance of international cooperation.
Although the gathering focused primarily on pandemic flu preparations, members of the subcommittee, part of the House Committee on Appropriations, also quizzed the public health trio on preparations for the coming flu season. Concerns were raised about a lack of domestic manufacturing.
An underlying concern of the subcommittee was directed at last year’s flu vaccine shortage, which Gerberding addressed by saying that the myriad government health agencies are preparing for all scenarios connected with the challenges associated with annual flu vaccine manufacturing.
"We are not going to assume anything about the supply," she noted, adding that despite manufacturers’ optimistic outlook to date, plans are in place to initially provide vaccines to those most in need. "The priority for us, as a health protection agency, is to get vaccines to those who need it most," she said.
Pandemic flu preparations already are under way, said government health officials who testified in mid-April before a congressional subcommittee.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
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