Crisis meetings then followed in Washington

Pandemic influenza has an unintended consequence. It boosts the strategic interest for one of the oldest players in public health: vaccination. A victory for Europe, who owns three-quarters of world production capacity. The three champions of the discipline, Sanofi Pasteur, the GSK English French and the Swiss Novartis are being courted on any part. These essential industrial crumbled under a rain of government orders. Americans are exactly in the opposite situation. In the 1990s, they have sacrificed their industry of vaccines on the altar of pharmaco-chemistry to the zenith of its power. They have woken up in 2005, when avian flu spread by the terrible H5N1, a strain otherwise more dangerous that the Ecumenical H1N1 today, threatening the planet.

US health authorities are facing a terrible and humiliating reality: almost all of the vaccines and antiviral drugs effective against the numerous and elusive pathogenic influenza are produced by companies of the old Continent. The Bush administration, who managed to bring down Saddam Hussein in a few days, discovers dependent abroad to protect its citizens against a germ invisible and unknown. By a facetious genetic lottery chance, the enemy was probably born in a Vietnamese chicken coop before transmitting to the human. This virus in the bizarre name is virtually Communist! The lesson is hard and without appeal. Protection against the epidemic risk, the US is barely better than the unfortunate Zimbabwe, which must import at great cost of treatments "made in the United States of America" to treat his patients with AIDS.

Crisis meetings then followed in Washington. The Department of health and human services is responsible for finding a parade in this incredible affront to Asia. Finally, we apply the usual recipe. It activates the pump $ and you out the game. The conclusions of public health experts are unambiguous: "the first objective is to put in place by 2011 of sufficient national production capacity to vaccinate the entire U.S. population within six months of the emergence of a pandemic."

In 2005, local industrialists are therefore requested to take an interest in the good old vaccine of the past, strong financial incentives would be improper to call grants. With the same lyricism and constant arguments, three European champions are invited to produce on-site precious remedies. In doing so, they will be present on the first market in the world and close to future customers receiving a double advantage: they are rather receptive to the vaccination and display a solvency foolproof. This great arrangement is immediately gone to a magical qualifier. The "win - win" is pure sugar. Pandemic, it will need vaccinate 150 to 200 million people in a few months. It was to produce at least 300 million doses per year in the United States, as two injections are required to be immunized. At eleven $ dose, it feels the jackpot. For all the experts, there is no doubt. The United States decided to become a grand of a sector which is still the preserve of Europeans.

Four years and billions of dollars later, where are these projects The United States have not yet achieved self-government. The deadline for 2011 appears to be compromised. Other countries have discovered their dependence and began similar approaches, such as the Brazil and the India. But it improvises not vaccine. The products currently on the market are manufactured on living material. It takes five years to build a new production unit, including two for the certification of the health authorities.

The race is far from finished and new matches between Europe and the United States are visible on the horizon. The next generations of vaccines will appeal to very innovative technologies: cell culture, "DNA Vaccine" naked As always, more reactive, safer or more economic production technique leads to a redistribution of the cards among producers. Currently majority manufacturing process involves embryonated chicken eggs which are somewhat mini-unités for the production of vaccines. But this technique is itself very vulnerable. It depends on the poultry stock could be decimated by a virus. Production on dog or monkey kidney cells has the wind in its sails. The United States invest considerable amounts in this sector.

In theory, the vaccine is the ideal solution to prevent infectious diseases. What better than an army of antibodies well educated to fight invaders But the immune system book secrets poorly. It takes at least ten years to develop a new vaccine and diseases such as AIDS or malaria remain hopelessly out of reach of current knowledge. One thing is certain: the vaccine is the undisputed winner of the health crises that hit the planet for ten years. Academe antivaccinales leagues whose influence remains very high in developed countries, it is in the centre of all public health policies that are implemented in the coming years. In his Parisian crypt of the Institute that bears his name, the pastor father must laughing.