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“Developing country vaccine manufacturers, so-called “emerging suppliers”, have made enormous strides over the last two decades. They have

increased capacity, improved facilities and are developing new important products [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5]. Developing country manufacturers now provide over half of all vaccines used globally. Their early activities concentrated on the manufacture of the standard World Health Organization/Expanded Programme on Immunization (WHO/EPI) antigens (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, oral polio vaccines, measles and BCG) for local consumption, but over the last 15 years several developing country manufacturers have worked with WHO and www.selleckchem.com/products/byl719.html the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to officially “prequalify” their products for global distribution. These emerging suppliers are exploring partnerships with multinationals and other Perifosine partners as they seek to expand the products they can offer both locally and globally. The papers grouped in this special issue of Vaccine

offer an excellent example of their flexibility and their potential in meeting global vaccine needs. In the mid 2000s a global shortfall in influenza vaccine was apparent and it was clear that production had to be expanded to ensure that developing countries could have access to pandemic influenza vaccines. Improving influenza vaccine production within developing countries was an important

global public health priority to assure better preparation should a pandemic occur. A major challenge was the need for rapid technology transfer to enable this production capacity. Since 2008, WHO has provided 11 seed grants to manufacturers in low- and middle-income first countries to establish or improve their pandemic influenza vaccine production capacities. The attached papers describe the success of this effort and provide an example of the potential that is available with developing country vaccine manufacturers if a specific initiative is well organized and led. Using a world class group of advisers, WHO has facilitated technology transfer from established manufacturers or other technical sources for the rapid expansion of egg-based killed and live attenuated influenza vaccines. An important component of this work was the establishment of a technology platform at the Netherlands Vaccine Institute (NVI) that provides training and technology transfer for egg-based inactivated whole and split virus influenza A vaccine production to participants from developing countries (NVI paper). Predictably, some programmes are progressing more speedily than others, but the overall progress in improving global influenza vaccine capacity is clearly apparent in the collected papers.