Britain says US told of vaccine shortage
Flu shot supplies halved by deficit
LONDON -- British health officials said yesterday that their American counterparts were informed in mid-September that problems at a drug manufacturing plant in northwest England could disrupt influenza vaccine supplies to the United States.
Records at Britain's Department of Health indicate that the plant's owner,
Health officials in Britain responded to the warning by seeking other sources for the vaccine, Langley said. ''That's when we started making our contingency plans by contacting other manufacturers."
The British account is at odds with statements by US health officials that they were caught by surprise by the British regulatory agency's decision this week to suspend vaccine manufacturing for three months at the Liverpool plant. It had been expected to provide 48 million doses of flu vaccine to the United States, about half of the US supply this year.
In Washington yesterday, federal health officials told an emergency hearing in the House Committee on Government Reform that the system for procuring vaccines for the American public has been getting increasingly ''fragile" for years, but none of the proposed solutions are likely to fix the problem quickly.
Britain had been scheduled to receive about 2 million doses, or 10 to 20 percent of its total need, of the vaccine, known as Fluvirin. A British Department of Health statement said officials had arranged for an additional 1.2 million doses from some of its five other suppliers by the end of the month, with 1 million more due to arrive by mid-November.
US officials, by contrast, have said they might not be able to make up the shortfall and urged doctors to give the vaccine only to people who are at highest risk. Influenza kills about 36,000 Americans each year, and as many as 500,000 people worldwide.
