In response to the human outbreak of H7N9 influenza in China, the Department of Health has established a task force for H7N9 vaccine development to increase our national production capacity for novel influenza vaccines and actively contacted the WHO Collaborating Center for Influenza at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, USA and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) in Japan for obtaining the candidate vaccine virus for the avian influenza A(H7N9) virus they respectively developed. Upon receiving the candidate H7N9 vaccine strain from US CDC, we have immediately stored it in a - 80°C refrigerator. As the Department of Health (DOH) constantly looks for partners to strengthen our national vaccine production capacity, it promulgated the H7N9 Vaccine Development Subsidy Program for schools, associations, and research and health care institutes to apply on May 23, 2013.    

The H7N9 Vaccine Development Subsidy Program has been designed specifically for the scale-up process development of the H7N9 influenza vaccine, including the completion of phase 2 and 3 of the vaccine clinical trial, passing the inspection by the Food and Drug Administration, and obtaining the vaccine license. The subsidy program aims to subsidize one egg-based vaccine production plan and one cell-based vaccine production plan. To ensure the safety, efficiency and quality of the vaccine, rigorous and extensive testing for the vaccine, including all starting materials, must be conducted before the vaccine can be approved for use by the public. Once pre-clinical animal studies have been completed and passed, the vaccine will enter clinical trials conducted by the National Clinical Trial and Research Center and the Center of Excellence for Cancer Research to expedite the development of the vaccine.

According to the scheduled timeline of vaccine development, we expect to complete the development of the H7N9 vaccine and has the vaccine license issued in a year’s time. If, however, the phase of pandemic alert were to raise and human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 influenza virus were to occur, DOH will purchase the vaccine as soon as possible for use by the general public.