GOVERNMENT support for vaccine research and production must be stepped up dramatically to prepare best for a flu pandemic, scientists and manufacturers said yesterday.

While experts welcomed the decision to stockpile antiviral drugs as an essential first line of defence, they gave warning that Britain would still struggle to produce new vaccines that will also be vital to containing a pandemic. Fresh investment was needed to ensure that sufficient quantities of vaccine could be manufactured domestically were pandemic flu to strike.

Ministers ought also to consider ordering supplies of an experimental vaccine against the H5N1 strain of avian flu currently circulating in Asia, even though there are no guarantees it will ultimately be useful. Virologists said the Government was right to buy the antiviral Tamiflu before vaccines because it was effective against a broad range of flu strains, while jabs must be tailored to specific varieties of the virus as they emerge. Tamiflu, however, does not prevent infection or guarantee recovery. Vaccines will therefore become critical to containment efforts as soon as they are available.

There are serious doubts about Britain’s capacity to manufacture flu vaccine in the amounts that could be needed.

The country’s only flu vaccine factory, Chiron’s plant at Speke, near Liverpool, was shut down over a contamination scare last October and remains closed indefinitely.

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