Who discovered the influenza vaccine?

Influenza: How long will it take to get a H7N9 vaccine to market?

• As of April 7 2013, a total of 21 cases have been laboratory confirmed with influenza A(H7N9) virus in China, including six deaths, 12 severe cases and three mild cases, according to the WHO.

• Answer:

  Traditional egg-based vaccines take on the order of 6 months assuming that we have the appropriate viral target. Cell-based vaccines are a bit faster and take around 3-4 months once the serotype is identified. There are alternative methods like cell-free synthesis, VLPs, and recombinant proteins that provide faster turnaround but none of them are clinically approved. As a result, the current strategies of quarantine and trade embargos will be important. Also, anti-virals seems to be effective at suppressing the disease. At the moment, it is unclear what HA subtype we're dealing with and it is entirely possible that the dominant HA mutant will be different by the time. The typical vaccination course is against an H1N1, H3N2, and a B-strain. Likely the CDC and the WHO will be sequencing the viruses and tracking their evolution before beginning full-fledged vaccine development. However, the CDC has begun developing a "seed strain" that should help vaccine producers to immediately start when they settle on a strain.