Allocating vaccines and antiviral medications during an influenza pandemic.

Influenza pandemics have been a regular occurrence throughout human history. 1 One difference between contemporary pandemics and those of the past is that today we have the capacity to develop life-saving pharmaceutical interventions in the form of vaccines and antiviral medications. Unfortunately, while these interventions should provide significant benefits to many people, the supply is likely to fall considerably short of the demand. An effective vaccine is unlikely to be available until approximately six months after the onset of a pandemic, 2 and even after a vaccine is developed, there are unlikely to be sufficient supplies to vaccinate more than a small fraction of the world’s population. As for antiviral medications, although the United States is close to reaching its goal of stockpiling eighty-one million treatment courses, the Institute of Medicine estimates that