Rich countries to share some swine flu vaccine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nine rich countries agreed to share extra swine flu vaccine with less-developed countries on Thursday, just as companies prepared to deliver supplies.

The United States pledged 10 percent of its vaccine supply, joining Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, and Britain.

The World Health Organization has been working to persuade countries to share their supplies of vaccine against the pandemic. "They own most of the vaccine out there," WHO's Dr. Keiji Fukuda told scientists at an Institute of Medicine pandemic influenza meeting this week.

"The single biggest (issue) we have to deal with is disparity."

Vaccine makers GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Pasteur previously pledged 120 million doses to WHO. Experts estimate that 80 percent of the world's nearly 7 billion people live in the developing world, with little hope of getting a vaccine.

WHO has been urging countries that pre-ordered vaccine from the 25 or so manufacturers to share some of it.

"Whatever is available to WHO will be made available first to least-developed countries, about 49 countries, with the intention of providing them to vaccinate their healthcare workers," Fukuda said.

The United States has ordered 195 million doses of H1N1 vaccine from five makers -- Glaxo, Sanofi, Australia's CSL, AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit and Novartis.

This is not enough to cover 300 million people but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says almost every year influenza vaccines go unused and millions of doses are thrown away.