Use the back button to return to your initial selection.

HOME |  THE NETWORKS |  CANVAC

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

The looming threat of an avian influenza pandemic has produced a crisis-to-opportunity scenario in which the urgent need for new and better vaccines can be addressed on a global basis.

People make a fundamental leap of faith in medical science when it comes to vaccines, says Dr. Paul Ritvo, a principal investigator with the Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics (CANVAC).

"When you are vaccinated, you must trust the vaccine will be beneficial and that the detriments, if any, will be minor," says Dr. Ritvo, a leading expert on public attitudes towards vaccines. "It is no small event. No one can sustain the illusion that something that will make you immune for most of your remaining days is not a powerful intervention to your immune system."

Dr. Ritvo, a researcher at Toronto's University Health Network and York University, is the lead author of the April, 2005 Nature Medicine paper on the challenge of making the best use of vaccine technology.

It was Dr. Ritvo's background in psychology and the CANVAC team's expertise across several fields – including health policy, anthropology, internal medicine, bioethics and epidemiology – that made the project possible. They were approached by the high-impact, prestigious journal because of the prodigious research CANVAC had done on how the public views vaccination.

"Because of CANVAC, we were able collect a unique group of researchers who all were interested in vaccines and able to contribute different expertise and perspectives. We pulled together a unique, composite of views. It is very rare for that to happen."

It is also very timely for that to happen.

Given the current threat of an avian influenza pandemic, peoples' faith in medical science and the power of vaccines to save lives are becoming critical issues. Dr. Ritvo says an avian influenza pandemic is obviously a much worse health threat than the SARS outbreak of 2003 that caused 44 deaths and "virtually paralyzed" Toronto. But given that harsh reality, there is also a chance for positive change.

"It is unfortunate that the opportunity only comes amid crisis. But because of the avian flu, there is now a great opportunity to do something very meaningful for international health."

The challenge, as CANVAC researchers point out, is a considerable one.

"Currently, only 2% of the world's pharmaceutical activity involves vaccines," says Dr. Ritvo. "A huge amount of money and activity is directed towards pharmaceutical agents, which will save a lesser number of lives than effective vaccines. We must direct more capital and labour towards vaccine development."

Unfortunately, the economics of the pharmaceutical industry work against this. There is more money to be made in creating and marketing drugs that are taken consistently, over long periods of time, than in researching, creating and delivering vaccines, many of which require few doses to be effective. What's needed, says Dr. Ritvo and others such as Dr. Jeffrey Sachs (Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University) and Dr. Michael Kremer (Gates Professor of Developing Societies at Harvard) is a fundamental shift in how governments relate to the big pharmaceutical corporations.

"Essentially, it means creating new structures," says Dr. Ritvo, "a new hybrid of co-operative capitalism. For example, when you create a vaccine purchase fund, you have governments investing tax revenue into a fund that will ensure proper profit for companies producing effective, lifesaving vaccines useful all over the globe"

While creating new structures is a slow and difficult process, the very real concern over avian influenza – the World Health Organization has said it is not a matter of "if" the pandemic will strike but "when" it arrives – likely will speed needed changes.

"It used to be perceived that these infectious influenzas would take several months to move from one side of the world to the next, somewhat correlated with naval shipping time periods and frequencies," says Dr. Ritvo. "But with air travel, that three to six months has been revised to 12 hours. That is the standard on which we are now operating. However long it takes one person to go from one part of the globe to the other, that's how long it could take for an infection to spread. We're a global village and we haven't caught up to the vulnerability of being a village. The pandemic threat is a way of conceptualizing this."

The Nature Medicine paper points out the need for greater global cooperation, calling for more resources to be applied to developing HIV and malaria vaccines to reduce mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. We can't afford the luxury of thinking that something happening thousands of miles away does not concern us, says Dr. Ritvo.

"The vaccine issue is a wonderful example of the crisis-to-opportunity transition. We're in crisis for good reasons, partly because some technologies jumped out in front of other technologies. The fluidity of international travel is way out in front of our capacity to scan for and prevent outbreaks of disease. That's unfortunate. But it's not going to go away by taking an ostrich approach. We have to take on the vaccine challenge."

www.canvac.ca