First A/H1N1 flu vaccine being tested in China
POSTED June 24, 2009 - 11:26 | POSTED BY Jaspreet Kaur
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on June 24, 2009 - 12:07
Before the vaccines hit the market, there will be safety tests in the labs for a period of 14 days, coupled with two-month clinical tests starting this July. This was revealed by Fan Bei, deputy general manager of Hualan Biological Engineering Inc., pharmaceutical company based in Henan province.
At present the company has manufactured a first set of 90,000 doses. Once the vaccines are approved, the company will be able to produce 600,000 doses a day. “As the vaccines still need to go through several tests, we did not produce at full capacity,” Fan added.
Earlier a clinical test plan was given to State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) by the firm, but the details of the plan were not revealed by Bei.
Currently, there are 11 eligible drug firms in China that can produce flu vaccines.
Meanwhile, another drug company named Sinovac Biotech Co. Ltd. has declared that it, too, has initiated the research to develop A/H1N1 flu vaccines on June 15.
Seed virus
The drug manufacturer company got the seed virus from a World Health Organization (WHO) lab on June 3.
A “Seed Virus” is the culture of virus used to start a new culture. “Seed Culture” is the first culture used to start new stock cultures. Therefore, if you want to begin with a stock culture of virus to develop a vaccine, you first need to immunize your culture with a seed virus.
A/H1N1 in China
Till now, 414 cases of A/H1N1 flu have been reported from China and epidemiologists have cautioned that there is a very high probability of an outbreak of the disease in thickly populated areas.
Last Wednesday, a document released by the Ministry of Health stated that in case of large scale spreading of the virus, the health authorities would focus on “group activities” of every community, rather than diligently tracking and administering drugs to individual patients.
