GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization said Tuesday it expects drug maker GlaxoSmithKline to complete shipping donations of swine flu vaccine for poor countries by May 2010 — almost a year after the pandemic was declared.
The global body hopes to start receiving the first of 50 million doses from Glaxo in late November or early December, said WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl.
Shipments would continue "between end of November and May," he later told reporters.
WHO has made it a priority to secure vaccines for developing countries that can't afford to purchase them directly. The Geneva-based agency aims to supply enough vaccine to immunize at least 2 percent and as much as 10 percent of the population in 95 countries, but that target depends on donations from manufacturers and rich nations.
So far, WHO has received none of the 156 million doses promised by Glaxo, Sanofi-Aventis, MedImmune and CSL. This is partly because production difficulties have delayed deliveries across the board, including to paying customers.
"A lot of manufacturing capacity is coming online just now, and what Glaxo has done is get vaccine to us as soon as their production schedules are allowing," Hartl said.
Glaxo and others also have to fulfill commercial contracts with governments, meaning only part of their vaccine production goes to WHO.
"When they do not have another contractual arrangement they give us the vaccine from their capacity," said Hartl.
Glaxo spokeswoman Gwenan White said WHO would start receiving donations from a vaccine production plant in Canada later this month. She was unable to confirm exactly when the shipment of 50 million doses would be completed, but said it would be "in the first half of next year."
The company first announced the donations in May 2009.
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