New Bird Flu Vaccine 100 Percent Effective

Pennsylvania researchers have produced a bird flu vaccine made from a genetically engineered human cold virus and shown that it protected 100 percent of vaccinated mice and chickens. While production of a conventional flu vaccine requires months of work and large numbers of fertilized chicken eggs, the researchers reported Thursday that they prepared their vaccine in only 36 days, growing it in a laboratory dish.

The ability to produce a new vaccine so quickly could give public health officials a powerful new tool to combat the H5N1 bird flu virus if it should mutate and begin infecting humans widely. The team is working with the FDA to begin human tests of the vaccine, and it is said the vaccine should be equally effective in humans because it is based on a human virus. The testing also suggests that if H5N1 mutates, the vaccine is still likely to be effective against it.

Humans infected with the H5N1 bird flu strain have a 50% mortality rate with most of the deaths being children.
Posted on The Human Stain