Senate Approves $8 Billion for Bird Flu Plan
Senate Approves $8 Billion for Bird Flu Plan
Oct. 27, 2005 -- The Senate approved $8 billion in new spending on bird flu preparedness Thursday. Lawmakers said the money will fund a White House readiness plan that is expected to be announced soon.
Most of the money is targeted to large new government buys of a still-experimental bird flu vaccine and stockpiles of antiviral medications including Tamiflu. More than $1 billion was also earmarked for enhanced disease surveillance capabilities and public health preparedness.
The vote came hours after the Bush administration announced that the same company whose safety problems threw the U.S. into a flu vaccine shortage last year has been awarded a $62.5 million contract to make bird flu vaccine for American stockpiles.
Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt announced Thursday that vaccine maker Chiron Corp. would begin manufacturing vaccine against H5N1, the virus strain responsible for bird flu cases in Southeast Asia.
The company said in a statement that it would manufacture the vaccine in its Liverpool, England, plant, the same facility that was shut down by British regulators last year. That move left the U.S. without nearly 50 million expected seasonal flu vaccine doses and sent the government scrambling for replacements.
Chiron is again producing seasonal flu vaccine this year, though it has announced that it expects to produce less than the 18 million doses it had previously projected.
"The hard truth is that capacity doesn't exist in the United States to produce vaccines at sufficient speed and in sufficient quantity to reach every American," Leavitt told reporters.
Bird flu has not yet shown evidence of being able to spread between humans, a condition necessary to spark the pandemic that public health experts fear. The virus has sickened 121 people and killed 62 in Southeast Asia, according to an Oct. 24 update from the World Health Organization.
"An influenza vaccine effective against the H5N1 virus is our best hope of protecting the American people from a virus for which they have no immunity," Leavitt said.
The contract is the second for bird flu vaccine this fall. The government struck another deal in late August with Sanofi-Pasteur to produce $100 million worth of H5N1 shots.
Most of the money is targeted to large new government buys of a still-experimental bird flu vaccine and stockpiles of antiviral medications including Tamiflu. More than $1 billion was also earmarked for enhanced disease surveillance capabilities and public health preparedness.
The vote came hours after the Bush administration announced that the same company whose safety problems threw the U.S. into a flu vaccine shortage last year has been awarded a $62.5 million contract to make bird flu vaccine for American stockpiles.
Vaccine Production
Health and Human Services Secretary Michael O. Leavitt announced Thursday that vaccine maker Chiron Corp. would begin manufacturing vaccine against H5N1, the virus strain responsible for bird flu cases in Southeast Asia.
The company said in a statement that it would manufacture the vaccine in its Liverpool, England, plant, the same facility that was shut down by British regulators last year. That move left the U.S. without nearly 50 million expected seasonal flu vaccine doses and sent the government scrambling for replacements.
Chiron is again producing seasonal flu vaccine this year, though it has announced that it expects to produce less than the 18 million doses it had previously projected.
"The hard truth is that capacity doesn't exist in the United States to produce vaccines at sufficient speed and in sufficient quantity to reach every American," Leavitt told reporters.
Fighting Bird Flu's Spread
Bird flu has not yet shown evidence of being able to spread between humans, a condition necessary to spark the pandemic that public health experts fear. The virus has sickened 121 people and killed 62 in Southeast Asia, according to an Oct. 24 update from the World Health Organization.
"An influenza vaccine effective against the H5N1 virus is our best hope of protecting the American people from a virus for which they have no immunity," Leavitt said.
The contract is the second for bird flu vaccine this fall. The government struck another deal in late August with Sanofi-Pasteur to produce $100 million worth of H5N1 shots.