WHO urges continued seasonal flu vaccine making-Glaxo
* WHO tells vaccine makers to continue with seasonal flu jab
* WHO working to make H1N1 virus available to industry soon
* Poor countries to pay less for H1N1 vaccine
(Adds more quotes, Schering-Plough, details, background)
By Katie Reid
GENEVA, May 19 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation has asked pharmaceutical companies to continue making seasonal flu vaccines, and a seed virus for an H1N1 vaccine will be ready soon, a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) executive said on Tuesday.
"Companies must continue with the seasonal vaccine. There has been no request to stop," Jean Stephenne, president of GSK Biologicals, said after a meeting with senior U.N. officials and executives from 30 vaccine-makers around the world.
"The WHO said it is working actively to make the seed virus available soon," Stephenne told Reuters at the WHO's Geneva headquarters after talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and senior health officials.
"We have not yet received the seed virus. We expect the strain to be available in early June. We would then be able to start production at the end of June, beginning of July," he said.
A lot of the technology needed to make a pandemic vaccine for the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, was already available thanks to the work carried out on the vaccine against the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, Stephenne said.
The pandemic vaccine was also likely to be cheaper than the seasonal vaccine as only one strain would be used compared to the three used to protect against seasonal influenza, he said.
"We are looking at one dose per inhabitant. A second dose can come a few months later. One dose on its own will give good protection on a population basis," Stephenne said.
A tier system for the price of the vaccines had been put in place and countries with a GDP per head of less than $1,000 would pay the least for a vaccine, Stephenne said.
Gelmer Leibbrandt, general manager of Schering-Plough's SGP.N Nobilon, told Reuters that six companies have pledged to make 10 percent of the vaccine they produce available to the United Nations, while another eight companies are in discussions.
At least 30 companies worldwide make flu vaccines, including Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA), Novartis (NOVN.VX), Baxter International (BAX.N), Australia's CSL (CSL.AX) and nasal spray maker MedImmune, now part of AstraZeneca (AZN.L).
Making a pandemic jab could require them to cut production of vaccines for seasonal flu, which kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people a year. (Editing by Jonathan Lynn)
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