| ■ Bird Flu Vaccine Shows Promise | 2008.04.22 |
| U.S. researchers say they're developing a new bird flu vaccine that could be longer-lasting, provide broader protection, and be easier to produce than existing vaccines. Currently, the only vaccine approved by U.S. health officials requires a very high dose, is only effective in about 60 percent of people who receive it, and doesn't protect against new strains of the H5N1 bird flu virus, Agence France-Presse reported. The new vaccine, which uses a mutated version of a common cold virus to deliver genes from two types of the H5N1 virus, protected mice from bird flu infection for more than a year and was broad enough to protect against some mutations of the virus. The findings were published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. The vaccine hasn't been tested in humans. |