WHO SAGE: Not enough polio vaccines, lower doses to make stocks lasts
The World Health Organization (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE), the principal advisory group to WHO for vaccines and immunization, recommends lowering the dose of inactivated polio vaccines to make supplies last longer as the two companies manufacturing the vaccines are not making enough.
Polio, a contagious viral disease which invades the nervous system, can cause irreversible paralysis within hours.
However, with polio on the brink of eradication globally, the WHO wants to see a worldwide switch from the traditional “live” oral polio vaccineto an inactivated vaccine that needs to be injected in order to minimize the risk of spreading the disease.
But WHO SAGE, which meets twice a year, said a severe shortage of inactivated vaccine means many countries should use a fractional dose, via an intra-dermal rather than intra-muscular injection, allowing each dose to go twice as far.
“There are only two manufacturers of the vaccine and they are having some problems with production of the vaccine, and getting enough raw material of the polio virus,” said SAGE Chairman Jon Abramson.
French drug maker Sanofi Pasteur and Asia’s largest vaccine maker, Serum Institute of India Ltd, owned by the billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, are the only two manufacturers of the inactivated polio vaccine.
In an interview, WHO polio spokeswoman Sona Bari said that production was about 40% below what had been requested, leaving about 50 countries without adequate supplies.The economic savings of the polio program, between 1988 and whenever the disease is eradicated, were estimated at US$50 billion, she said.
According to Reuters, a spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur said the company was on track to meet its commitments as part of its 2016-2017 delivery plan and should be able to supply more doses in 2018. There was no comment available from Serum Institute of India.
