Sanofi H1N1 vax a winner at one dose

Sanofi-Aventis says a single dose of its new swine flu vaccine kicked up just the kind of immune response it was hoping to see in children as well as adults. And the new data offers some added proof that the world's growing stockpile of pandemic vaccines will go twice as far as originally predicted.

U.S. health officials had feared that people would need two doses of the H1N1 vaccine. Most new viruses require an initial shot followed by a booster jab two weeks later to trigger the kind of immune response needed to ward them off. Now Sanofi joins a string of big manufacturers who say that one dose can do the job. Sanofi researchers announced today that 94 percent of children aged 3 to 17 were protected with one dose. For adults the protection rate was 93 percent. And the researchers added that there were no serious side effects recorded during their clinical trial. 

Sanofi now has to wait and see how the general public responds to the efficacy and safety data. A number of surveys have detected a deep-seated resistance to the new vaccine among people of all ages as well as healthcare workers. But Sanofi CEO Chris Viehbacher told Bloomberg that he's hopeful. "When people see studies like the ones we released today, the safety data," he said, "they will want to make sure they're protected."

- read the story from Bloomberg

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