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U.S. Orders More Bird Flu Vaccine

Bush Lauds Vietnam's Efforts

November 20, 2006

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The United States has ordered enough vaccine to protect an additional 2.7 million people against bird flu, adding to the existing stockpile that would protect about 3 million, while in Vietnam, President Bush toured a bird flu lab and praised Vietnam's effort to contain the virus.

The Department of Health and Human Services awarded $199 million in contracts to Novartis AG, Sanofi-Pasteur and GlaxoSmithKline PLC -- for 5.3 million doses of vaccine. It takes two doses to vaccinate a single person.

The government plans to eventually buy enough vaccine for 20 million people, including emergency and health care workers, in case of an epidemic of the deadly Asian bird flu known as H5N1.

"Having a stockpile of influenza vaccine that may offer protection against the H5N1 virus is an important part of our pandemic influenza preparedness plan," said Mike Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

During his visit to the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City, Bush commended Vietnam's efforts to fight bird flu. Forty-two people have died of the disease there but there have been no deaths over the past 12 months, thanks to a nationwide poultry vaccination campaign.

"Vietnam is serving as a model of how people ought to react," Bush said, the Canadian Press reported, and he vowed to continue supporting the country's fight against bird flu and HIV/AIDS.

Bush's next stop is Indonesia, where bird flu has killed 56 people, the highest toll in one country.

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