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CIDRAP News, on the one year anniversary of the discovery of the novel H1N1 virus, is running a series of `lessons learned’ articles. The first, written by News Editor Robert Roos, appeared last week (see H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED).
Today it is contributing writer Maryn McKenna’s turn, and she looks at the vaccine related lessons learned.
Highly recommended.
H1N1 LESSONS LEARNED
Vaccine production foiled, confirmed experts' predictionsMaryn McKenna
Contributing Writer
Second in a series marking the 1-year anniversary of novel H1N1 pandemic influenza. The first, on the virus itself, appeared Apr 23.
Apr 26, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – Among the many surprises of the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic—its emergence at the end of a flu season, its unexpected toll of mild illness, its almost-complete replacement of circulating seasonal strains—was its reversal of years of received wisdom on how vaccines would be needed to respond.
Researchers had predicted, for instance, that to be protected against a novel strain, most members of the population would require two doses of vaccine containing the new pandemic strain. And because that many doses of vaccine would stress the existing vaccine-manufacturing system, other researchers had predicted that the addition of dose-sparing adjuvants to the new vaccine would be crucial to stretch out scarce supplies of newly made antigen.
Neither turned out to be true.
Many of the difficulties encountered with the pandemic vaccine production system were discussed at length in Maryn McKenna’s award winning 7-part series the Pandemic Vaccine Puzzle which she wrote for CIDRAP in 2007.
A series that remains just as relevant today as when she wrote it.
Part 1: Flu research: a legacy of neglect
Part 2: Vaccine production capacity falls far short
Part 3: H5N1 poses major immunologic challenges
Part 4: The promise and problems of adjuvants
Part 5: What role for prepandemic vaccination?
Part 6: Looking to novel vaccine technologies
Part 7: Time for a vaccine 'Manhattan Project'?
Bibliography
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