100 Million H1N1 Vaccine Doses at No Cost

Pharmaceutical giant sanofi-aventis says it will give 100 million doses of H1N1 influenza vaccine at no cost to the World Health Organization. The vaccine is not yet available but is expected to be ready for flu season.

"We welcome this very generous gesture by sanofi-aventis. One hundred million doses of vaccine against the pandemic H1N1 2009 virus is a sizable and generous gesture to and on behalf of the world's less-developed countries," said Director-General Dr Margaret Chan, in a release.

A consortium of companies is working as team to develop the vaccine, and is doing so in record time. Among the companies participating are Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline, along with several smaller pharmaceutical companies. Another big company, Novartis, said recently that it had produced its first batch of vaccine.

Before the vaccine is sent out to clinics the world over it must go through extensive testing in human trails. Early reports say the vaccine works well.

Photo courtesy of Guerry, via Flickr