CAIRO: The Egyptian ministries of Health and Foreign Affairs have filed an official request to the United Nations' Secretary-General to ensure the fair distribution of the swine flu vaccine among all nations. The rich countries are getting their share of the vaccine to cover all of their citizens' needs while the poor and developing nations are not even getting the minimum numbers they need, said Minister of Health Hatem El Gabaly in a press conference Thursday attended by the US ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey. The H1N1 virus vaccine is expected to be available in Egypt by October and will cost LE 35, Hamdallah Zedan, chairman and CEO of the Egyptian Organization for Biological Products and Vaccines (VACSERA), said. Around 80,000 doses of the new vaccine will be available by next month, before the start of the Hajj season scheduled for late November, Zedan added. Egypt bought 5 million doses of the vaccine, which will arrive intermittently. The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday that pharmaceutical companies will be able to produce about 3 billion doses of swine flu vaccine a year, much less than previously expected. WHO says that priority should be to vaccinate health workers and high-risk groups, including young children and pregnant women. Altogether these groups would likely be covered by the 3 billion doses available each year, especially as early clinical data shows that healthy adults and older children require only a single dose of vaccine rather than two, as some experts had predicted. WHO said that ensuring poorer countries receive sufficient vaccines remains one of the main challenges because much of the global supply has been reserved by rich nations. It praised a group of nine countries, including the United States, which last week agreed to donate a share of their pandemic vaccine supply to developing nations. The WHO will be coordinating the distribution of these donated vaccines, it said, starting with an estimated 300 million doses in November.
