Pepper
12-06-2004, 08:45 PM
The U.S. government is expected to announce Tuesday the purchase of five million doses of flu vaccine from Canadian and German plants to deal with their shortages.
Canadian flu shot manufacturer ID Biomedical will provide over a million doses. British drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline is expected to provide four million doses from its German plant.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccines after inspecting the facilities where they were made.
U.S. health officials had planned to have more than 100 million doses of the vaccine this season. But Chiron Corp., the drug company that makes about half of all the flu vaccine for the U.S., said it would not be producing any more for this current flu season.
British officials had to suspend its licence because of concerns about contamination at a British plant.
Aggie Adamczyk, a spokeswoman with the Public Health Agency of Canada, said demand in Canada for the flu vaccine has "levelled off" and that officials have secured enough supply to meet the current demand.
She said manufacturers have provided the government with 10.9 million doses, exceeding their contractual obligations.
But Adamczyk cautioned that it's still early in the season and that increased flu activity could create a spike in demand.
"We will continue to monitor the supply very, very closely," she said.
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cbc/canada_home&articleID=1786148
Canadian flu shot manufacturer ID Biomedical will provide over a million doses. British drug manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline is expected to provide four million doses from its German plant.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccines after inspecting the facilities where they were made.
U.S. health officials had planned to have more than 100 million doses of the vaccine this season. But Chiron Corp., the drug company that makes about half of all the flu vaccine for the U.S., said it would not be producing any more for this current flu season.
British officials had to suspend its licence because of concerns about contamination at a British plant.
Aggie Adamczyk, a spokeswoman with the Public Health Agency of Canada, said demand in Canada for the flu vaccine has "levelled off" and that officials have secured enough supply to meet the current demand.
She said manufacturers have provided the government with 10.9 million doses, exceeding their contractual obligations.
But Adamczyk cautioned that it's still early in the season and that increased flu activity could create a spike in demand.
"We will continue to monitor the supply very, very closely," she said.
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cbc/canada_home&articleID=1786148