Sanofi announces a one-month deadline for vaccine shipments for the fall flu season

Sanofi Pasteur's influenza vaccine deliveries will be delayed by about a month during the next influenza season, the French drug maker said.

Sanofi said its vaccines would begin to be delivered by mid-August and all should be completed by the end of November. The company said the delay was due to the fact that the World Health Organization had taken a little longer to select virus vaccine strains. This extra time has allowed health officials to improve the matching of strains of H3N2 virus that are expected to circulate during the 2019-2020 season, Sanofi said.

"We are still producing about 70 million doses of seasonal vaccine to support vaccination campaigns nationwide," Sanofi spokesman Nicolas Kressmann said Wednesday.

The delay "will most likely have no adverse effect because of the vaccines available from other manufacturers," said Dr. James Cherry, professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine. 39, University of California at Los Angeles. He said that it is only serious if the virus undergoes a change. In this case, the vaccine may not be good anyway.

The flu season usually starts in the fall and may last until May. Activity tends to peak between December and February, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency recommends getting vaccinated early, ideally by the end of October, when the flu begins to spread.

According to CDC estimates, between 36,400 and 61,200 people died and more than 530,000 were hospitalized during the last influenza season that ended in early May. It was not as severe as previous seasons but was one of the longest in years. About 80,000 Americans have died of the flu and its complications during the 2017-2018 season, one of the deadliest in decades.