We need faster methods for development and production of vaccines for when pandemics happen. A paper in PNAS draws attention to the time lag from emergence of a new influenza strain to availability of vaccines.

New research published today (Monday April 27) from the University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust warns of a six-month time lag before effective vaccines can be manufactured in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak.

By that time, the first wave of pandemic flu may be over before people are vaccinated, says Dr Iain Stephenson, Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester.

In his paper published in PNAS- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA- Dr Stephenson makes the first case for a pre-pandemic vaccine to mitigate the worst effects of pandemic flu.

He said: "This study is the first to show an effective pre-pandemic vaccine approach. This means that we could vaccinate people potentially many years before a pandemic, to generate memory cells that are long lasting and can be rapidly boosted by a single dose of vaccine when needed."

The paper focuses on the H5N1 avian influenza threat that scientists have been worrying about for years. The swine flu threat probably popped up after the paper was submitted for publication.

A New York Times article also takes a look at vaccine production delays. One problem: right now the flu vaccine industry is gearing up to make their normal yearly vaccine. If they do not start making swine flu vaccine until after the regular vaccine production is done then we'll be more months away from getting swine flu vaccine.

If production of the swine flu vaccine were to start right after that, the first 50 million to 80 million doses would be available by September, Dr. Robinson said.

A full 600 million doses, enough to provide the required two shots for each American, could be finished by January. If immune stimulants called adjuvants were added to the vaccine, that could reduce the dosage needed by each person, allowing enough doses to be ready by late November, he said.

Those doses are only for the US and United States is less than 5% of the world's human population.

The existing way of making influenza vaccine with chicken eggs is slow. However, faster ways of growing vaccine using cell lines can be much faster. Baxter Internation claims their CELVAPAN method could cut months off the time it takes to make vaccine.

Baxter has claimed its H5N1 vaccine could be ready within 12 weeks of an influenza outbreak, compared with 20 to 28 weeks if traditional methods are used.

In addition, cell culture does not suffer from the seasonality of egg-based production, which requires embryonated eggs.

Will Baxter's method get rushed into production if a new pandemic is starting right now?

CELVAPAN is manufactured in a cell culture-based system in Bohumil, Czech Republic, at one of the largest cell culture vaccine production facilities in the world. Vero cell technology uses a well-established cell line originally derived from African green monkey kidneys in 1962. A continuous cell line has been derived from these cells so that an unlimited supply of cells is available without the requirement of generating additional cells from animals.

10 years from now pandemic flus won't be a problem because we'll have much faster ways to manufacture vaccines. While vaccine production capacity has improved a lot in response to the avian flu and SARS threats we still are vulnerable to a new dangerous pathogen.