WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- The US Department of Health and Human Services announced on Thursday a purchase of 100 millionUS dollars of bird flu vaccine to prepare for a possible human flu pandemic.
The health department awarded the contract to the French vaccine maker Sanofi-Pasteur.
Preliminary results from the National Institutes of Health's first testing of the experimental vaccine in people suggest the inoculations spur an immune response strong enough to protect against the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza that has killed about 60 people in Asia and spread to Russia and Europe.
It is still unclear how many doses the 100 million dollars will buy as the necessary amount of antigen per dose is not yet determined.
However, the purchase could provide enough doses to protect at least 1.7 million people. Initial clinical studies show that each person would need two 90-mg doses of the vaccine.
The new purchase will add to a US government stockpile of 2 million doses of bird flu vaccine.
The US government plans to buy enough vaccine for 20 million people and buy enough antivirals for another 20 million people.
It also said on Thursday it will spend 2.8 million dollars to buy enough antiviral drug Relenza from GlaxoSmithKline to treat 84,300 people.
On Thursday, World Health Organization chief Lee Jong-wook warned that the bird flu virus will mutate and become transmissible by humans, urging immediate worldwide action to stopit becoming a pandemic. Enditem
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