The National Institutes of Health announced this month that it has started testing a universal mRNA flu vaccine among 50 volunteers. Several such vaccines are being developed, but none has advanced to a late-stage trial. Mittal said a universal flu vaccine, which would target a wide variety of flu strains, could also provide cross-protection against whatever version of bird flu one day finds its way into humans. CSL Seqirus said a phase 2 trial to assess the safety and immune response of an inactivated virus vaccine is scheduled to start in June. GSK's trial is set to begin this year, but the company did not specific the type of technology it uses. government to manufacture experimental vaccine doses that are also closer matches to the current strain. Meanwhile, two other pharmaceutical companies, CSL Seqirus and GSK, have partnered with the U.S. "Making a vaccine that looks like what’s circulating right now gives us a higher chance of having cross-protection against something slightly different, but very related," Poland said. Vaccine researchers are developing shots that could be updated to target whatever mutated strain of H5N1 gains a hold in people someday. does, however, keep a stockpile of chickens to ensure it can continue producing flu vaccines.īetter options may be on the horizon. Suresh Mittal, a virology professor at Purdue University. "In a real pandemic situation, the poultry will be at threat, and then the supply of the eggs will be highly compromised," said Dr. The process requires individually inoculating each egg with a modified virus and, of course, depends on an ample supply of healthy chickens. Gregory Poland, founder and director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group. "You would expect that those vaccines based on those older strains would likely offer little protection against what’s circulating today," said Scott Hensley, a professor of microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania.ĭeveloping new, better-tailored shots for the current strain would be complicated, though, because most flu vaccines are grown in chicken eggs - "a slow process fraught with production issues," according to Dr. The shots have only been administered in trials and were derived from strains that circulated in 20. has a stockpile of H5N1 flu shots in case such a crisis arises, but three experts said it would likely prove insufficient should this particular type of avian flu start infecting people. Chile reported one infection in March and Ecuador one case in January.īut scientists have long considered H5N1 to have pandemic potential. The United Kingdom reported two cases Tuesday, both poultry workers with asymptomatic infections detected via routine testing. recorded its only human case of H5N1 last April - the person was involved in culling poultry with presumed infections in Colorado. Vaccines for people, meanwhile, would only be considered if the virus eventually undergoes a complicated string of mutations that allow it to spread from person to person. Agriculture Department announced in April that it had started testing several vaccine candidates for poultry. H5N1 kills almost all the birds it infects among reported cases in people since 2003, the death rate has been 56%. The virus's proliferation and high fatality rate have prompted questions about two types of possible vaccines: those for birds and those for humans.
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