NEWS: H5N1 (Bird Flu) Vaccine created.. effective

www.nytimes.com
Government scientists say they have successfully tested in people a vaccine that they believe can protect against the strain of avian influenza that is spreading in birds through Asia and Russia.

Health officials have been racing to develop a vaccine because they worry that if that strain mutated and combined with a human influenza virus to create a new virus, it could spread rapidly through the world. (The vaccine cannot lead to such a situation because it is made from killed virus.)

Tens of millions of birds have died from infection with the virus and culling to prevent the spread of the virus. About 100 people have been infected, and about 50 have died from this strain of the avian influenza virus, called A(H5N1). So far there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, but that is what health officials fear, because it could cause a pandemic. And that fear has driven the intense research to develop a vaccine.

"It's good news," Dr. Fauci said. "We have a vaccine."

But he cautioned: "We don't have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is, can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine?"

An earlier human vaccine against the A(H5N1) avian influenza virus was prepared after it first appeared in the world, in Hong Kong in 1997. That vaccine was never fully developed or used, and the strain has mutated since then.

In interviews over recent days, Dr. Fauci has said that tests so far had shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year. The vaccine, developed with genetic engineering techniques, is intended to protect against infection, not to treat those who are sick.


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