Drug giant donates bird flu vaccine to WHO stockpile

Europe's largest drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has promised to donate 50 million doses of its "pre-pandemic" bird flu vaccine for humans to a global stockpile for distribution in the world's poorest countries.

GSK says it will deliver enough vaccine for 25 million people to the World Health Organisation (WHO) over a three-year period.

The company is also encouraging the governments of major European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Britain to place orders to secure a supply for their populations.

The vaccine is made with a proprietary adjuvant, or additive and targets the H5N1 virus currently circulating the globe.

The deadly H5N1 strain of the virus has to date killed around 190 people out of more than 300 known cases since 2003; it has also been responsible for the deaths, one way or another, of millions of birds.

The bird flu remains in the main a disease of birds, and humans only contract it by close contact with infected fowl.

But there has been an on-going worry that the virus will mutate, as they do, into a form easily transferred between humans.

This could trigger a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

Glaxo's pre-pandemic vaccine only offers some degree of protection until a precisely tailored pandemic vaccine can be produced; that process in itself could take four to six months from the time a pandemic strain is identified.

Drug companies Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis and Baxter are also working on bird flu vaccines.

The United States and some smaller countries have already placed orders for national stockpiles but concern has been voiced that the world's poor could be left unprotected.

This concern has prompted the WHO to set up a vaccine stockpile to distribute shots at short notice to poor countries.

The pre-pandemic vaccine has yet to be formally approved by U.S. regulators or in Europe.

The product apparently has a shelf-life of three to five years.