The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7440 p209
24 February 2007

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News summary

UK pandemic flu plan tested

The Government's response to a human influenza pandemic was tested this week in an exercise dubbed “Winter willow”. The exercise aimed to test the UK’s ability to manage the effects of a flu pandemic in terms of how health services, transport, education and food distribution would be maintained during an outbreak.

Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England, commented: “This exercise is another part of the continual testing, refining and developing of our plans.” The findings from the exercise will be fed into the overall pandemic flu preparedness plan.

Meanwhile, encouraging progress in pandemic flu vaccine development has been reported at a World Health Organization meeting in Geneva. Sixteen manufacturers are developing prototype vaccines against H5N1 avian influenza virus; five of them are also developing vaccines against other avian viruses.

The WHO says that, for the first time, results presented at the meeting convincingly demonstrate that newly developed vaccines can stimulate a potentially active immune response against H5N1 strains identified around the world, some of which work with low doses of antigen. However, the WHO warns that the world still lacks the manufacturing capacity to meet potential global demand during a pandemic.