ViroClinics, a small company run by the Erasmus Medical Center
in Rotterdam, has tested a vaccine against bird flue developed by a
British pharmaceutical firm on 20ferrets, which have bronchial
tubes similar to those of humans, Dutch newspaper De
Volkskrant reported Thursday.
The vaccine against the lethal H5N1 bird flu virus on animals
was developed by British pharmaceutical firm GSK.
The vaccine offers protection to those ferrets against not only
the H5N1 virus but several other bird flu viruses that occur
worldwide.
The H5N1 virus has killed millions of poultry in the last three
years, mainly in Asian countries. Roughly 350 people, mainly in
Vietnam and Indonesia, have been infected with it and two-thirds of
them have died.
The research results will be published Thursday on the
scientific website PloSone, the paper said.
The H5N1 virus constantly changes form and adapts to humans
thereby increasing the risk of people infecting one another. The
World Health Organization predicts the development of a special
strain of the virus which could cause a flu pandemic.
Usually a vaccine could only be developed after an outbreak,
when the precise form of the pandemic strain is known. It would
then take four to six months for the vaccine to be widely
available.
However, GSK says the addition of a substance that enhances the
response of the human immune system has enabled it to produce a
pandemic vaccine now. It means that if a pandemic bird flu breaks
out, people can be immediately vaccinated.
(Xinhua News Agency January 4, 2008)