Vegan Flu Vaccines in Europe

[sohK7een]

Hey there!

I live in Switzerland and am looking for egg-free/vegan flu vaccines. (I travel to neighboring countries quite often, so essentially anything available in continental Europe would probably work for me.)

As far as I know, FluBlok and Flucelvax would be good candidates. I found some sites ([1], [2]) which suggest that Flucelvax is available in Europe under the name Optaflu. Can anyone confirm that? I couldn't find anything about the availability of FluBlok in Europe, though. Does anyone have any information about that? Also, are there any other flu vaccines which are (more) suitable for vegans and available in Europe?

[1]: http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v19/n1/full/nm0113-4.html
[2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25968069

[brimstoneSalad]

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/egg-allergies.htm

(Flucelvax) likely has a much smaller amount of egg protein since the original vaccine virus is grown in eggs, but mass production of that vaccine does not occur in eggs. Recombinant vaccine (Flublok) is the only vaccine currently available that is completely egg free.

Mass production doesn't likely scale up the amount of eggs used, so I would call both vegan.

So I would say yes, Cell based (likely grown in synthetic medium) or recombinant vaccines are both fine, Flucelvax or Flublok as you said, are I think the only ones right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optaflu

Optaflu is a cell culture derived influenza vaccine manufactured by Novartis.

History
On April 27, 2007 Novartis received a positive opinion supporting European Union approval of Optaflu. It is the first influenza vaccine made in a mammalian cell line, rather than chicken eggs.[1] The vaccine will be manufactured in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The United States government is providing $500 million in construction costs and guaranteed vaccine purchases.[2]

Apparently the same manufacturer as Flucelvax, Novartis (now called Seqirus, apparently).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell-based_vaccine

This PDF from Seqirus also mentioned Optaflu in a reference at the bottom:
http://flu.seqirus.com/files/hcp_detail_aid.pdf

I've seen a few other sources reference it as well, as cell based and made by Seqirus.

[sohK7een]

I went to some pharmacies looking for Optaflu and in one of them I was told that Optaflu is not available in Switzerland anymore. After hearing this I did some more research and found out hat Optaflu is also not approved by the EU anymore ([1], [2]).

Flublok also doesn't seem to be available in Europe since its website lists only resellers in North America [1] and it is not listed on ema.europa.eu. (It may of course be branded differently in different regions, but I didn't find any indication that it is available under another name in Europe.)

So it looks like only egg-based flu vaccines are available in Europe.

[1]: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/medicines/human/medicines/000758/human_med_000952.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058001d124
[2]: http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/EPAR_-_Product_Information/human/000758/WC500046957.pdf
[3]: https://www.flublok.com/

[brimstoneSalad]

Thanks for the update. That's unfortunate. Any indication of why they unapproved it? Is it due to GM-phobia or something?

[sohK7een]

Unfortunately, almost all news stories I could find about Optaflu were from the time when it got approved in Europe. I found an article [1] (unfortunately in German), though, which suggests that it became unavailable because its rights were transferred from Novartis to Seqirus (which is by the way also the last event recorded on the list of "procedural steps taken and scientific information after the authorisation" for Optaflu [2]), but I don't really get why the approval would depend on the company which produces and markets the vaccine.

[1]: http://www.pharmavista.ch/content/default.aspx?http://www.pharmavista.ch/content/NewsMaker.aspx?NMID=5424
[2]: http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/EPAR_-_Procedural_steps_taken_and_scientific_information_after_authorisation/human/000758/WC500046956.pdf

[brimstoneSalad]

Weird. That's a shame, but thanks for updating us on what you found.