Call for increase in flu vaccines

A top official from the UN World Health Organisation called for an increase in global capacity to produce flu vaccines, warning that recently boosted production capacity is not enough to handle any human pandemic.

Margaret Chan, assistant director-general for communicable diseases at the UN health agency, said that the worldwide capacity to immediately produce seasonal flu vaccines had recently been stepped up from 300 million doses to 425 million doses, but added that “that is a very small production capacity.”