WHO/UN and drugmakers discuss H1N1 vaccine access

The World Health Organization's Director General, Margaret Chan, and the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with over 30 vaccine  manufacturers from developed and developing countries at the WHO's  Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters to discuss issues arising from the  swine influenza outbreak. The International Federation of Pharmaceutical  Manufacturers and Associations' Influenza Vaccine Supply international  task force membership was led by the IFPMA's acting director general  Michael Boyd.

GSK offers 50 million pandemic vacc doses to WHO

Both the WHO and UN leaders stressed the importance of assuring that any  eventual vaccine for influenza A (H1N1) "was made available in a spirit  of equity and fairness, and invited the manufacturers to continue to  work with them to develop a strategy for this." In particular, Dr Chan  asked that 10% of any pandemic vaccine's supplies should be offered at  reduced prices to the governments of poorer nations, but the UK's public  broadcaster, the BBC, reported the day after the May 19 meeting that  only six out of the 30 manufacturers had agreed to this. UK drug major  GlaxoSmithKline, which was represented both directly and by its GSK  Biologicals subsidiary, announced it is prepared to donate 50 million  doses of pandemic vaccine to the WHO.