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It was announced this morning that the US government has ordered enough bulk antigen from Sanofi-Aventis to produce roughly 38.5 million doses of pre-pandemic vaccine.
The 192.5 million dollar order is in addition to the 126.9 million dollar order from Sanofi-Aventis last year. This antigen will be based on Clade 2.2 (A/Barheaded goose/Qinghai Lake/01/2005)of the H5N1 virus, seen in migrating birds.
A pre-pandemic vaccine, based on an existing clade of the H5N1 virus, is hoped to provide partial protection during a pandemic. How much protection is unknown. Much depends on how much the pandemic virus differs from its earlier incarnations.
Since it requires 2 doses of the vaccine, 28 days apart, this order will cover roughly 19.25 million people. In 2007 the United States purchased 126 million dollars worth of prepandemic vaccine based on Clade 2.0 of the virus. Smaller amounts of a clade 1 vaccine were produced prior to 2007.
This new order should bring the US stockpile up to roughly 32 million courses of vaccine, albeit split between 2 or more clades. A delivery date for this new vaccine antigen did not appear in the news release.
2008-04-28 07:39
Sanofi-Aventis wins new $192.5 mln order for avian flu vaccine from U.S. govt
PARIS (Thomson Financial) - Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis, said it has received an order worth $192.5 million from the U.S. government for vaccines against a new strain of avian influenza.
Sanofi Pasteur said it will receive from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) a payment of $192.5 million, to be booked in the second quarter of 2008, for supplying H5N1 bulk vaccine antigen that will produce approximately 38.5 million doses of vaccine.
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