[Ip-health] Reuters: Cuba develops new Flu type B vaccine

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Cuba Produces Key Synthetic Vaccine for Children


By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) Nov 24 - Cuban researchers have developed the first
synthetic vaccine against haemophilus influenzae type b, a breakthrough
aimed at lowering the cost of immunizing children in poorer countries,
according to a new report.
Research on the new vaccine, which has already been tested and put into
production in Cuba, will be presented on Wednesday to experts from the
world over at a biotechnology congress in Havana.
This is the first vaccine for humans made with a chemically produced
antigen, Cuban researchers say. The available, conventional vaccine is
made using a difficult and more costly process of growing antigens in a
bacterial culture.
"It took us 6 years," said Dr. Vicente Verez, head of the University of
Havana's Synthetic Antigens Laboratory. "But what could be more precious
for society than to have healthy 2-month-old babies?" he said.
Poor nations that depend on multinational pharmaceutical companies for the
vaccine--now costing $3 a dose--will now have a less expensive
alternative, Dr. Verez said.
The disease has been almost erased in the United States, the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said. But it remains a problem in
developing countries where the cost of the vaccine has been a barrier to
widespread immunization.
Clinical trials conducted in the central Cuban province of Camaguey, first
on adult volunteers, then on 4-year-old children and finally on babies,
showed a 99.7% success rate in antibody response.
The technology for the new vaccine was patented in 1999 by the University
of Ottawa and the University of Havana. The Canadians discovered how to
simplify crucial chemical reactions and Cuba applied the method on a
larger scale, Dr. Verez said.
Cuba could not afford the conventional vaccine when it appeared a decade
ago. The Cuban economy was in deep crisis after the collapse of its
communist ally the Soviet Union. So Cuba turned to its own medical and
biotechnology industry, one of the most advanced in the Third World.
Havana has invested millions of dollars in the industry since the 1980s,
achieving major successes such as the discovery of a recombinant vaccine
for meningitis B, which has been used in Latin American countries and was
licensed to GlaxoSmithKline for sale in Europe and possibly the United
States. It has also developed a hepatitis B vaccine that is exported to
more than 30 countries.
H. influenzae type B is the main cause of almost half of the infections in
children under five in the world and kills 500,000 children a year, mostly
in developing countries, according to UNICEF.
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