Bird flu jab disappoints

Sydney - A bird flu vaccine has been tested in Australia with disappointing results, news reports said on Saturday.

The drug developed by Melbourne's CSL Ltd was found to spark an immune response in only a minority of the 400 people who volunteered for a trial run by the University of Melbourne and the Royal Adelaide Hospital, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

CSL's Andrew Cuthbertson told the paper that about half of those who received the highest dose in the trial had an immune response that was no better than for regular human flu jabs. CSL intends to increase the dosage in a new trial.

CSL had earlier said it would have enough of the vaccine to be able to vaccinate all 20 million Australians within a six-month period. But that timeframe must now be adjusted because of the obvious need for higher dosages.

A report put out last week by the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank said the H5NI strain of the bird flu virus could kill as many as 142 million people and knock out one-eighth of the world economy if it mutated and allowed person-to-person infection.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 140 people around the world and killed 70.

The virus has been passed from birds to humans. There is no recorded incidence of the "nightmare scenario" of the virus being passed from human to human. - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA