Bird flu vaccine 'effective'

2005-08-08 12:18

Washington - US scientists have tested a vaccine that appears effective against a strain of bird flu that has killed at least 60 people in Southeast Asia since 2003, US newspapers reported on Sunday.

In a federally-funded study, 113 volunteers were injected with two doses of the vaccine, which produced an immune system response potent enough to neutralise the H5N1 strain of the virus, according to the Washington Post.

"It's good news," Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was quoted as saying in the New York Times. "We have a vaccine."

But, he added, "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?"

The H5N1 strain has so far been mainly transmitted between animals and led to the direct deaths or culling of millions of birds around Asia.

Experts fear it could mutate into a highly infectious strain that could be easily transmitted from animals to humans, or from humans to humans, unleashing a pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people.

The vaccine

Researchers at three US universities tested the vaccine, which was produced by French vaccine company Sanofi Pasteur, the dailies reported.

Researchers used a version of the virus originally isolated in Vietnam that has had a gene removed to make it harmless, the Post said.

"This is the first vaccine that anybody has that has been tested to show that you can actually produce a robust immune response," Fauci told the Post.

More tests are needed on the elderly and children, as the first tests were conducted on people under 65 years old, the newspapers said.

The ability to mass produce the vaccine is a concern, Fauci said. Since it is made in chicken eggs, "a potential major stumbling block" to successful mass production is the number of eggs farmers can supply manufacturers, he said.

- AFP