US okays six vaccines for 2008/09 influenza season
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
The US FDAhas approved six seasonal influenza vaccines for the 2008/09 season. There are five injectable inactivated vaccines – CSL's Afluria,GlaxoSmithKline's Fluarix and Flulaval,Novartis's Fluvirin, Sanofi Pasteur's Fluzone – and AstraZeneca's (formerly Medimmune) live intranasal vaccine Flumist. All three strains in the vaccine have changed from last season's formulation. The new influenza A virus strains are Brisbane/59/2007 (H1N1) and Brisbane/10/2007 (H3N2), while the B virus strain is Florida/4/2006. The H3N2 and B virus strains are currently used in the vaccine formulated for the southern hemisphere.