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Joan Stephenson, PhD

JAMA. 2008;299(23):2737.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The European Commission approved the first prepandemic avian influenza vaccine for use in the European Union, according to an announcement last month by the vaccine's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline.

A prepandemic vaccine is produced in advance of a pandemic (based on the avian H5N1 strains circulating at that time) to provide health authorities with the potential to protect the population before or at the onset of an outbreak. In contrast, a conventional pandemic vaccine is based on the specific pandemic influenza strain, but because it takes 4 to 6 months to produce, it is not likely to be available to many individuals who become ill early in the pandemic.

The company said it had signed contracts for the vaccine with the United States and several European countries and that it would donate 50 million doses to the World Health Organization to help establish a stockpile of prepandemic vaccines that . . . [Full Text of this Article]