Letter: How we can keep the world safe from avian influenza

Mike Davis's warning on bird flu (Comment, February 7) is timely.

In particular he is right about the lack of effort to develop a "world vaccine".

As things stand we have a capacity to produce vaccine for only 9% of the global population at best and more probably for 5%. This would only be available from six months after the pandemic began and so-called "jet spread" would probably bring the disease to the UK in less than a month. New vaccine approaches which could quickly be approvable by the regulators involve a live attenuated form of the virus or a pure protein which matches a key one on the surface of the virus. These could both be produced in existing facilities and be available within weeks of the beginning of a pandemic. For these vaccines to become available requires concerted action, especially between the US and European governments.

Professor Peter Dunnill (UCL Biochemical Engineering), 'The Guardian'