| ■ One Dose of Swine Flu Vaccine Offers Protection | 2009.09.14 |
| THURSDAY, Sept. 10 (HealthDay News) -- Preliminary tests of an H1N1 swine flu vaccine conducted in Australia and Britain show that a single dose creates enough antibodies to protect against the virus within about 10 days. That's a potentially significant development, because it was thought that two shots would be needed to provide full immunity to the virus. A one-dose protocol would greatly expand the supply of vaccine and hasten individual immunity. The H1N1 swine flu has already started to spread this fall in the United States and is infecting as many people now as would be expected in the peak of the flu season, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "A single vaccination at standard dose produced a strong immune response in more than 96 percent of adults studied," said the lead researcher of one of the two studies, Dr. Michael Greenberg, director of Clinical Development of Vaccines at CSL Behring, Ltd. in Victoria, Australia. |