Bird Flu Vaccine

[Papewaio]

A BIRD flu vaccine (http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,18177027-462,00.html) could be available in Australia within six weeks of a pandemic, Melbourne-based pharmaceutical manufacturer CSL Ltd said today.

Releasing early results of a clinical trial on a vaccine to combat the deadly virus, CSL (csl.ASX:Quote,News) chief scientific officer Dr Andrew Cuthbertson said the company was confident it was safe and effective.
He said that while it could be used in the event of a health crisis under special permission, further research involving a larger trial group and varying doses would need to be conducted before the vaccine gained approval.

"What we do know is, if a pandemic were hypothetically declared and we had to respond, then government would instruct us to do that," Dr Cuthbertson said.

"We would be able to be producing vaccine within six weeks."

CSL hopes to present its research to the Therapeutic Goods Administration by the end of the year for approval.

Interesting. Yet to have seen the virus mutate to the point that is a pandemic, and even if it does the mutated version that could cause a pandemic would still have to spread.

[solypsist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4714574.stm

that's good news because it seems it's spreading throughout Europe, from Hungary to Germany. Nigeria is fighting what is probably a losing battle against the disease, as is Indonesia, among other countries.

[Xiahou]

Clearly, a bad time to be a bird. :no:

[Ludens]

Technically, the high mutation rate should not be problematic provided the vaccine is produced fast enough (and six weeks is very fast for a flu vaccine). However, conventional methods are slow and rely on the annual prediction of the emerging strains. So far attempts to produce an H5-vaccine have failed because the H5 protein is not very immunogenic. That is: it does not elict a strong immune response so it does not confer strong protection.

All this indicates that they use a new way to produce a flu vaccine. Which is good, because with conventional methods the production capacity of all flu vaccine-producers put together will not be sufficient to provide the West (let alone the world) with vaccines in a timely manner when the pandemic breaks out.

Still, it may be a good idea to hoard some anti-flu drugs.

[Reverend Joe]

*gone to Australia*

Just in case... :flybye: