PHILIPPINE STAR:
BASEL (AP) – Swiss pharmaceuticals company Novartis AG said Friday it has successfully produced a first batch of swine flu vaccine weeks ahead of expectations.
The vaccine was made in cells, rather than grown in eggs as is usually the case with vaccines, the company said.
The announcement comes a day after the World Health Organization declared swine flu, also known as A(H1N1), a pandemic. The move indicates that a global outbreak is under way. WHO says drugmakers will likely have vaccines approved and ready for sale after September.
Novartis said it would use the first batch of vaccine for pre-clinical evaluation and testing. It is also being considered for clinical trials, the company said.
The vaccine was produced at a Novartis plant in Marburg, Germany. Novartis said the facility could potentially produce millions of doses of vaccine a week.
A second plant is being built in Holly Springs, North Carolina, the company said.
Novartis said more than 30 governments have requested vaccine supplies, including the US Department of Health and Human Service, which placed a $289 million order in May.
Scientists say the swine flu virus may have jumped from pigs to people as early as last August. That's several months before it was reported in Mexico in April.
ReplyDeleteScientists came up with a range of possible times for when the virus showed up in people. Their best estimate was that it happened this past January, but they also said it could have been last August.
Oliver Pybus of Oxford University, a co-author of the study, said it's also possible that the germ jumped to humans even before then. The study was published online Thursday by the journal Nature