Bush urges companies to produce bird flu vaccine

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush asked vaccine makers  to do their utmost to boost flu vaccine production, while officials from 80 countries and the United Nations wrapped up a meeting on ways to fight a feared influenza pandemic.

Neither session provided any immediate solutions, but U.S. officials said they served to raise the profile of the potential crisis and start setting up the networks needed to deal with outbreaks.

"I think what this is, is ratcheting this up," said Dr. Bruce Gellin, vaccine co-ordinator at the U.S. Department of Heath and Human Services and co-ordinator of the federal influenza preparedness plan.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing 60 of them.

If it acquires the ability to pass easily from person to person, it could kill millions in the space of a few months, experts say. The world does not have enough vaccine to fight off annual flu, let alone a pandemic of avian flu, and part of the problem is that very few companies make the vaccine.

Antiviral drugs can reduce the severity of a flu attack, but are in short supply.

Democratic members of Congress expressed concern about this and asked Bush to detail his preparations.

"While other nations have ordered enough antiviral medication to treat between 20 and 40 percent of their populations, the federal government has only ordered enough to treat less than 2 percent of Americans," Nevada Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and five colleagues wrote in a letter to Bush.

Last year there was a shortage of annual flu vaccine. Congress and HHS agencies have been working to find ways to lure companies back into the business of making it.

So Bush met with the chief executive officers of some of the top corporate makers of vaccines.

They included Richard Clark, president and CEO of Merck; Robert Essner, chairman, president and CEO of Wyeth; Jean-Pierre Garnier, CEO of GlaxoSmithKline; David Mott, president and CEO of MedImmune; Howard Pien, chairman, president and CEO of Chiron; and David Williams, CEO of sanofi pasteur, the vaccine unit of Sanofi-Aventis.

"We talked about what's necessary to get to the goal of having enough vaccine in the shortest possible amount of time," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, who attended the meeting, told reporters.

"I firmly believe that the efforts the United States puts into place now also will contribute to improved pandemic preparedness world-wide," sanofi pasteur's Williams said in a statement later.

"The best preparation for a possible influenza pandemic is to help ensure the public is aware of the current, annual threat of seasonal influenza and the need for vaccination -- starting with this season -- with a goal towards universal immunisation before a pandemic arrives," Williams added.

Only a few blocks away, the U.S. State Department wrapped up a meeting of diplomats and United Nations experts.

"This initiative on the part of the United States government has solidly placed the avian influenza and the very real threat of a pandemic very high on the global agenda," said Kang Kyoung-wha, director general of the South Korean Foreign Ministry's international organisations bureau.

Leavitt was preparing to leave on Saturday for a weeklong visit to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

"We have advanced offers to a number of governments in the region to partner with them in the development of a number of assets," Leavitt said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said one carrot the United States and other countries could offer in exchange for co-operation would be help in developing a better public health infrastructure.

Fauci, who will accompany Leavitt, said one possible plan being worked on would be to test antiviral drugs in Vietnam, where there have been 91 human cases of H5N1 infection and 41 deaths.

- REUTERS