China expects swine flu vaccine ready in September (Feature)

By Andrea Sosa Cabrios Jul 3, 2009, 21:48 GMT

Cancun, Mexico - China wants to be 'self-sufficient' in the production of vaccines against the new A(H1N1) influenza virus, and plans to have a vaccine available by September, Chinese Health Minister Zhu Chen said Friday.

'We are producing the vaccines, we have 10 pharmaceutical industries involved in the vaccine's production and manufacturing. I think maybe in September (they will be) ready to be further evaluated,' Zhu told the German Press Agency dpa on the sidelines of the global summit on the new flu in Cancun, Mexico.

The Chinese minister said that 'some of the public companies' in China are in the process of the initial manufacturing of a vaccine. A preliminary version is likely to be ready by the end of this month, he noted.

'By September I think we will have the first results of the safety evaluation,' Zhu said.

By then, China hopes to be able to produce at least 13 million doses, equivalent to 1 per cent of its population of 1.3 billion people.

'That's not enough, for sure. Anyway the vaccines could not be enough for everybody in the world. So we need to identify the high risk population,' Zhu explained.

An expert of the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) said Friday in Cancun that developed countries have already reserved most of the vaccines, even though production has not yet started.

'Developed countries have bought 60 to 80 per cent of (expected) production,' Cuauhtemoc Ruiz, head of PAHO's immunization programme, said in Cancun.

Ruiz estimated that developing countries will 'at best' have access to around 10-20 per cent of total global production.

Zhu agreed with this evaluation.

'To my knowledge all the products (vaccines) produced by the multinationals have been already ordered,' he said. 'But I think that China should be self-sufficient.'

'We are expanding the capacity of our vaccine manufacturing and I think by the end of this year we may produce the amount necessary for 5 percent of the population, even more,' Zhu said.

The Chinese official said his presence in Mexico - along with representatives of 43 countries and World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Margaret Chan - showed that flu-related spats between Beijing and Mexico City have been put aside.

When the virus was first identified with Mexico as the epicentre in April, China put scores of Mexicans in quarantine, even if they did not have symptoms of the flu. Flight connections between China and the North American country were cancelled.

Zhu explained that the mortality rate associated with the A(H1N1) flu virus initially seemed to be high, around 5 per cent. A broader perspective allowed China to ease restrictions.

'We solved all the problems with our Mexican colleagues,' he noted.