The U.S. government on Thursday awarded Chiron Corp. a 62.5-million-dollar contract to produce a vaccine that could protect Americans from a possibly catastrophic human pandemic triggered by bird flu, DPA reported. U.S. health secretary Mike Leavitt said the move would address a shortfall in the nation's vaccine stockpile. "The hard truth is that capacity doesn't exist within the United States to produce vaccines of sufficient speed and in sufficient quantity to reach every American," Leavitt told reporters. Chiron said it would deliver the "bulk stockpile" of vaccine in 2006. It said the vaccine, to be produced in Liverpool, England, is based on an "inactivated" flu strain similar to the one known as H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia.
