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Influenza World brings you the latest news and updates in the flu field from around the world.

 
Experts fight H5N1 bird flu using anti-smallpox vaccine
02 March 2009

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scientists in Hong Kong and the United States have developed an experimental H5N1 bird flu vaccine for people by piggybacking it on the well-tested vaccinia vaccine that was used successfully to eradicate smallpox.

Initial tests on mice showed the vaccine to be highly effective, they told a news conference in Hong Kong on Sunday.

"It produced a lot of (H5N1) antibodies and the speed of antibody response was far higher with this strategy than the Sanofi one," said Malik Peiris, a microbiologist and bird flu expert at the University of Hong Kong.

Peiris was referring to Sanofi-Aventis's H5N1 bird flu vaccine for humans, which has been approved for use in the United States.

In an article published in the current Journal of Immunology, the experts from Hong Kong and the U.S. National Institutes of Health described how they inserted five key components of the H5N1 virus into the vaccinia vaccine.

"We put in many other proteins into that vaccine; we are using it like a carrier, if you like, a piggyback," Peiris said.

The vaccine uses a Vietnam strain of the H5N1 virus and appeared to be broadly protective. Mice that were inoculated with it successfully fought off an Indonesian strain of H5N1, according to the scientists.

Since 2003, the H5N1 avian influenza virus has infected 408 people in 15 countries and killed 254 of them. It has killed or forced the culling of more than 300 million birds as it spread to 61 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

While H5N1 rarely infects people, experts fear it could mutate into a form that people could easily pass to one another, sparking a pandemic that could kill tens of millions and topple the global economy.

Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1979 and the experts are hoping that their novel H5N1 vaccine can ride on the various advantages of the anti-smallpox vaccine.

The vaccinia vaccine is very cheap, has a long shelf-life of several years and does not require highly sophisticated laboratories, making it easier for poorer countries to produce.

"It is very stable and you can pack them off to developing countries and use them. They require refrigeration but it is less critical than other vaccines," Peiris said.

"Smallpox (vaccine) production capacity has gone down but many countries have the technology and the expertise to do it, and if necessary, it can be very quickly scaled up."

"But for other strategies (of producing H5N1 vaccines), it is not possible to rapidly set up manufacturing plants all over the world as they require very specialised plants."

However, it will take at least a few more years before the vaccine would be ready for the market. It must be tested next in ferrets, then monkeys, before human clinical trials can be carried out.

  • "I would describe flu as something that makes you feel very, very ill. You get a headache, aching bones, and are generally fed up"
  • "When I get flu symptoms I feel like a train has run over me"
  • "I felt very sick and, during the first week, I had high temperature. Flu was very different to a cold. I went back to work after two and a half weeks. Then I suffered a setback for another week"
  • "I run a guesthouse; flu would be a real pest for me. I couldn’t cook, I shouldn’t cook, and I wouldn’t cook, so I would need to get a lot of extra help in. It would cost me a lot more money. So flu’s a real problem, a right downturn"
  • "I work on my own and when I can’t work, I have to try not to infect my little children, so they avoid getting the flu as well"
  • "I feel a little numb, like I’m in another dimension. Because in general I have sore throat, headache, I feel all clogged-up. Usually a sensation like I’m floating in the air"
  • "Shivers, sweats, makes you ache. Last time I had flu I was off for two weeks"
  • "I think that I would probably be concerned that I would pass flu onto my children, who might not be able to deal with it as well as I would"
  • "Flu makes you feel like you’ve been hit over the head with a baseball bat. You don’t feel like you can get yourself out of bed as all your energy is drawn from you"
  • "I was incapable of working. It just wasn’t possible at all… and my flu dragged on for more than a week"
  • "I have no strength. It annoys me because I can do nothing, it seems like I’m wasting my time"
  • "Flu’s like being hit by a truck because you feel completely gone. There is no energy left in your body. You are suffering from high temperature. You’re sweating a lot and you feel really unwell"
  • "First of all infinite tiredness, then I feel like sleeping and don’t want to eat"
  • "I felt really miserable because my muscles and my bones were aching. Well, I can hardly describe it, I just felt really awful, absolutely miserable"
  • "It’s like there’s something huge treading on your head, like a deafening noise that destroys the eardrums"
  • "The fever was constantly rising – I immediately measured my temperature as soon as I got home. It was 41°C and it kept rising and I was wondering what’s going on. I was really scared! Everything was hurting and it all happened so fast. Flu came out of the blue"
  • "I always feel like my limbs have iron weights tied to them and I’m going to fall over any minute, a really stuffy runny nose and feel antisocial"
  • "I was totally dependent on others! I was incapable of doing anything at all"
  • "The real flu knocks you for six – you just don’t want to move or do anything. It’s not very nice"
  • "Not being able to go to work. Not being able to do the things I have to do at home and the commitments that I have day by day"