The weird ways that drugs are made
THIS WEEK: THE FLU JAB
FERTILISED chicken eggs provide a sterile natural incubator for the key ingredient in the flu vaccine – the flu virus – to grow.
Each egg is injected with a tiny amount of virus through a hole drilled in its top and incubated at 37C for two days while the virus multiplies inside it.
The egg’s top is then sliced off and the liquid inside the shell, which is rich in the flu virus, sucked out. The virus is then purified and killed, to stop it from causing flu when given in the vaccine.
Up to four different strains of flu – each grown in separate eggs – will be mixed together to form the vaccine. With one egg needed to grow one strain, it takes four eggs to produce one dose of the jab – and up to 50 million eggs to create the UK’s supply of the vaccine.
Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary University of London, says: "Millions of eggs arrive at the factories every week over the summer to make batch after batch of the vaccine, ready for distribution in September. It’s magnificent."
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