Race to find a vaccine against bird flu

PARIS – With the arrival of the deadly bird flu in Europe, the race is on around the world to find a vaccine to treat a possible pandemic, but nobody knows what form the virus may eventually take and manufacturing capacity is desperately scarce.

The problem is that the avian flu virus H5N1, the most likely to lead to human-to-human infection complicates the quest by continually mutating. At present the numbers of people contracting the virus has been kept down as the flu is ordinarily spread through contact with infected birds.A prototype vaccine developed from the strain identified in 2003 has had to be abandoned because it is no longer of use against the form the virus discovered the following year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).But from Vietnam to Chicago teams of researchers continue to work on “drafts” of the vaccine with the aim of winning valuable time if the virus does show up in a “humanised” form.The Sanofi Pasteur laboratory has concluded a deal worth US$100 million to produce “between the start of September and the end of October” this kind of “pre-pandemic” vaccine, after having already produced several million doses ordered by, among others, France and the United States.Clinical trials are under way.US researchers say they have come one step closer to developing a tougher, more flexible bird flu vaccine that could be produced significantly faster than traditional vaccines and would also protect against future viral mutations.The vaccine would be delivered by a harmless virus that could be developed in tissue cultures rather than chicken eggs.This would guard against concern that eggs could become scarce during a pandemic and also allows for significantly faster and larger production cycles, said lead researcher Suresh Mittal at Purdue University in Indiana.It could be produced within two months after the identification of the strain rather than the usual six months, Mittal said.- Nampa-AFPAt present the numbers of people contracting the virus has been kept down as the flu is ordinarily spread through contact with infected birds.A prototype vaccine developed from the strain identified in 2003 has had to be abandoned because it is no longer of use against the form the virus discovered the following year, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).But from Vietnam to Chicago teams of researchers continue to work on “drafts” of the vaccine with the aim of winning valuable time if the virus does show up in a “humanised” form.The Sanofi Pasteur laboratory has concluded a deal worth US$100 million to produce “between the start of September and the end of October” this kind of “pre-pandemic” vaccine, after having already produced several million doses ordered by, among others, France and the United States.Clinical trials are under way.US researchers say they have come one step closer to developing a tougher, more flexible bird flu vaccine that could be produced significantly faster than traditional vaccines and would also protect against future viral mutations.The vaccine would be delivered by a harmless virus that could be developed in tissue cultures rather than chicken eggs.This would guard against concern that eggs could become scarce during a pandemic and also allows for significantly faster and larger production cycles, said lead researcher Suresh Mittal at Purdue University in Indiana.It could be produced within two months after the identification of the strain rather than the usual six months, Mittal said.- Nampa-AFP