The PneumoADIP, based at Johns Hopkins University, constructed surveys designed to understand how countries would react to vaccines of varying efficacy, price and method of administration. Consulting firm Applied Strategies collected responses from global, regional and national public health officials, and these responses were incorporated with information gleaned from donors and manufacturers into a forecast model, explains Sandra Wrobel, president of Applied Strategies.
So far the models project only weak demand. Gandhi reports that his team's estimates, which are not yet complete, find a basically negligible demand of 10 million treatments for a minimally effective vaccine. Candidate HIV vaccines currently in clinical trials may have relatively low efficacy.
The PneumoADIP anticipates that a few so-called early adopter countries would realistically order one million to three million doses of vaccine in the next three years at a range of (donor-subsidized) prices that manufacturers might accept, observes Angeline Nanni, the group's director of vaccine supply and finance. Although the numbers are low, "we could take it to suppliers and say, 'Look, this is where we have good solid data,'" she says.
The Number's Not the Thing
The point of a forecast is not the number it coughs up but the understanding it creates about the market for a product, stresses Woods. "You can start doing things today to increase the rate of use of the vaccine" when it comes out, she notes.
Gandhi concurs: "It's showing us the light at the end of the tunnel, if you will." IAVI might try to inform nations of the potential advantages of a minimally effective vaccine if need be, which could ultimately enhance demand, he points out. Eventually, he adds, the group hopes to use an improved forecast to help decide which vaccine candidates to push ahead with.
Such judgments should not be rushed, says Steve Brooke, commercialization adviser for human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines at the public health group PATH. Brooke is charged with modeling demand for the two HPV vaccines in development, one of which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year.
Longer-term forecasting "can be totally appropriate," Brooke explains, "as long as everybody understands--when you're early in the product cycle, your accuracy of [predicting demand for] any particular country, for any particular time, for any particular unit volume, is going to be terrible." For that reason, he adds, "it would be disappointing to me if these kinds of forecasts got used to make critical decisions for vaccine X versus vaccine Y."
One potential complication in ascertaining demand for emerging vaccines could be competition between them. Additional pneumococcus vaccines may come to market by 2015, for example. GAVI, along with the World Bank and the Gates Foundation, hopes to model the health and financial trade-offs developing countries will face if they suddenly encounter a choice of products, Zaffran notes.
Public health groups would like to someday coax suppliers into expanding their production facilities for these products, which may barely cover a firm's costs even if all goes smoothly. They face a major challenge, however. Manufacturers require five years' notice to build new facilities, meaning they need an idea of what to expect even farther down the line.
Given that public health groups are just learning how to construct forecasts, convincing suppliers to take such risks may be a slow process, remarks Zaffran. Step one is finding out how well these initial efforts work, and there's only one way to know, he says. "They just have to wait and see if the demand materializes."
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Add CommentPerhaps the weak demand is due to the awareness they are being experimented on by those Groups, who support Medical Injection Programs which are detrimental to their health. Many of the supporting groups are involved in committees responsible for the belief, people and their children should be injected with experimental medicines which contain AIDS and other Cancer causing Diseases, this is a fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAIDS is a Man-Made Genetically Engineered Disease and it has been scientifically proven that;
AIDS was spread through vaccination programs, not only in Africa but in Daytona Beach Florida through a Measles Vaccine Program
The Genes of the AIDS Virus or Codon Choices are not found in Man or Primates
Ref:
1. Bulletin of The World health Organization Vol. 47, 1972, No.3 pg 259 Memoranda
2. This is a Bio-Attack Alert, March 28, 1986 by Attorney Theodore A Strecker & Robert B. Strecker M.D. Ph.D.
3. Seventh National cancer Conference Proceedings, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, Inc and the United States National Cancer Institute, published by the J.B. Lippencott Company, Philadelphia and Toronto, 1972
4. The Fogarty International center Proceedings, N0. 3, May-June 1972, reports the proceedings of a workshop held at the National Institutes of health, Bethesda, Maryland, July 27-30, 1970
5. W.H.O. Murdered Africa, by William Campbell Douglass, M.D.
6. Pierce Wright Science Editor of the London Times, Posted on Front Page
Monday May 11, 1987 Smallpox Vaccine Caused AIDS Throughout Africa
7. Video The Strecker Memorandum
Weak demand is due to the awareness Medical Injection Programs are detrimental to their health.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1.Bulletin of The World health Organization Vol. 47, 1972, No.3 pg 259 Memoranda
2.This is a Bio-Attack Alert, March 28, 1986 by Attorney Theodore A Strecker & Robert B. Strecker M.D. Ph.D.
3.Seventh National Cancer Conference Proceedings, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, Inc and the United States National Cancer Institute, published by the J.B. Lippencott Company, Philadelphia and Toronto, 1972
4.The Fogarty International center Proceedings, N0. 3, May-June 1972, reports the proceedings of a workshop held at the National Institutes of health, Bethesda, Maryland, July 27-30, 1970
5.W.H.O. Murdered Africa, by William Campbell Douglass, M.D.
6.Pierce Wright Science Editor of the London Times, Posted on Front Page Monday May 11, 1987 Smallpox Vaccine Caused AIDS Throughout Africa
7.Video The Strecker Memorandum