The government-funded influenza vaccines for the next flu season would be changed to the trivalent flu vaccine, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is planning to purchase about 7 million doses.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) yesterday made the decision to change the flu vaccines from the current quadrivalent vaccine to the trivalent vaccine.
The quadrivalent flu vaccine contains four vaccine viruses or viral proteins: two influenza A viruses — influenza A(H1N1) and influenza A(H3N2) viruses, and influenza B lineages B/Victoria and B/Yamagata.
Photo: Taipei Times
The government-funded flu vaccination program in Taiwan began offering the quadrivalent flu vaccine in 2019.
ACIP head Lee Ping-ing (李秉穎), a professor at National Taiwan University Hospital, yesterday said the main reason the committee decided to change to the trivalent vaccine is that the health authorities have not observed any circulation of the B/Yamagata virus since 2020.
While there is no problem in using the quadrivalent flu vaccines, if vaccine makers continue to make vaccines with the influenza B/Yamagata virus, there are still risks that it might leak from research-and-development labs into the local communities, causing it to circulate again, he said.
The WHO last year recommended removing the B/Yamagata influenza virus strain from flu vaccines, he added.
Following the WHO recommendation, flu vaccine makers around the world last year had to readjust their production lines, he said.
Domestic vaccine makers also needed time to apply and receive permits for the trivalent vaccines, so quadrivalent flu vaccines were still used during this flu season, he said.
There are five pharmaceutical companies that have a permit to manufacture and distribute flu vaccines in Taiwan: Adimmune Corp (國光生技), Sanofi Taiwan Co, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) pharmaceutical Co’s Taiwan Branch, TTY Biopharm Co (台灣東洋藥品) and Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp (高端疫苗).
Adimmune, Sanofi, TTY Biopharm and Medigen have obtained drug permit licenses for trivalent flu vaccines, the Food and Drug Administration’s online Drug License Inquiry System showed.
Open tendering for flu vaccine procurement would be held next month or in April, CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) said.
As the number of elderly people in the nation is increasing, the centers are planning to purchase about 7 million doses of flu vaccines for the next season starting in October, Tseng said.
The number is the highest ever for the government-funded vaccination program.
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