Caution greets bird flu [vaccine] claim
Two teams working on better vaccines for use against a potential bird flu pandemic have announced progress in the past week, but influenza experts are sceptical.
The two labs both used a human cold virus, called an adenovirus, to carry pieces of DNA from H5N1 flu in a vaccine. Both labs - one at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and one at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre - were able to protect mice against fatal H5N1 infections. But neither study was even mentioned at a meeting of top US flu experts in Washington this week.
"It's just not that new," said Dr John Treanor, a flu vaccine expert at the University of Rochester in New York. "There are a zillion vaccines that protect in mice. On the grand scale of things, it's nowhere near to being a vaccine you would see in humans."
Two teams working on better vaccines for use against a potential bird flu pandemic have announced progress in the past week, but influenza experts are sceptical.
The two labs both used a human cold virus, called an adenovirus, to carry pieces of DNA from H5N1 flu in a vaccine. Both labs - one at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and one at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre - were able to protect mice against fatal H5N1 infections. But neither study was even mentioned at a meeting of top US flu experts in Washington this week.
"It's just not that new," said Dr John Treanor, a flu vaccine expert at the University of Rochester in New York. "There are a zillion vaccines that protect in mice. On the grand scale of things, it's nowhere near to being a vaccine you would see in humans."
posted by Faustus and FrankenKitty at 7:03 AM
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