Question

You have 6 x 2,000L fermenters capable of producing the vaccine and each batch takes 3 days to run, producing 50 μg vaccine/L. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention), it is estimated that the U.S. market will consume 179 million doses of flu vaccine annually. If each dose requires 0.15μg vaccine/strain, how many weeks out of the year should you plan on reserving for flu vaccine production?

Answer 1

Total volume of fermenters = 6 x 2000 = 12000 L

Maximum vaccine can produced

= ( 50 μg vaccine/L-3day) x 12000 L

= (600000 μg vaccine / 3day) x (365 day/annually) x (10^-6g/μg)

= (73 g vaccine/annually ) x (1 annual/ 52.143 week)

= 1.4 g vaccine /week

Vaccine required = 179 x 10^6 doses / annually

μg vaccine / dose = 0.15

vaccine required

= (179 x 10^6 doses) x (0.15 x 10^-6 g vaccine / dose)

= 26.85 g

Number of weeks should be reserved

= ( 26.85 g) / (1.4 g vaccine /week)

= 19.18 week