So if you’re a drugmaker, how would you answer these questions:

If only a few hundred people have been infected with bird flu and about half of died, how much vaccine do we need right now? And how soon will we need a lot? And how does that square with limited production capacity that’s devoted to making good, old seasonal flu vaccine? Remember, this flu strikes millions each year.

Those issues are raised in an interesting piece in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) this morning. For now, the argument calling for more production of seasonal flu is winning.

“The real public-health need today is for seasonal flu,” says a spokesman for Sanofi-Pasteur, the vaccine unit of Sanofi-Aventis, which produces about half of the estimated 350 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine. “You either produce [vaccines for] seasonal flu” or bird flu. As a result, the bird flu vaccine “is not a vaccine that we want to sell to the public,” he continues. “We don’t have a marketing strategy for this product,” which will be reviewed on Feb. 27 by an FDA panel.

Another question, though, is the extent to which vaccine manufacturers can switch gears rapidly. This is also hard to answer because there are production issues due to the need for high doses and the threat of ever-changing strains. And so, says Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “It’s not going to be something you’re going to see on the shelf for sure. It will likely be strictly controlled.”

Assuming anything close to enough vaccine can be made.

[tags]Bird Flu, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Vaccines[/tags]