Production Of A New Type Of Flu Vaccine Launched In The USA

Production Of A New Type Of Flu Vaccine Launched In The USA.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a romance standard of flu vaccine, the operation announced Wednesday. Flublok, as the vaccine is called, does not use the routine method of the influenza virus or eggs in its production. Instead, it is made using an "insect virus (baculovirus) softness system and recombinant DNA technology," the FDA said in a news release. This will countenance vaccine maker Protein Sciences Corp, of Meriden, Conn, to produce Flublok in brawny quantities, the agency added.

The vaccine is approved for use in those aged 18 to 49. "This authorization represents a technological advance in the manufacturing of an influenza vaccine," said Dr Karen Midthun, headman of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "The new technology offers the implicit for faster start-up of the vaccine manufacturing process in the event of a pandemic, because it is not dependent on an egg reservoir or on availability of the influenza virus".

While the technology is new to flu vaccine production, it has been employed in the making of vaccines that hamper other infectious diseases, the agency noted. As it does with all influenza vaccines, the FDA will assess Flublok before each flu season. In inquire into conducted at various sites in the United States, Flublok was about 45 percent powerful against all circulating influenza strains, not just the strains that matched those in the vaccine.

The most commonly reported adverse reactions included discomfort at the site of injection, headache, weakness and muscle aches - events also typical for conventional flu vaccines, the instrumentality said. The new flu vaccine could not have come at a better time, with the flu season well under practice and sporadic shortages of both the traditional flu vaccine and the flu treatment Tamiflu. "We have received reports that some consumers have found location shortages of the vaccine," FDA Commissioner Dr Margaret Hamburg said Monday on her blog on the agency's website.