the new bird flu vaccine created a strong immune response

Ukmedix News has seen the New England Journal of Medicine report showing that a new influenza vaccine clinical trial done on over 250 men and women produced good results. The vaccine which is specifically designed to be an H5N1 avian influenza is manufactured by Baxter International and is the first H5N1 vaccine which is made with cells in a laboratory dish as opposed to chicken eggs.

The fact that chicken eggs are not required for this vaccine is important because scientists say that the specific chicken eggs that they require are often difficult to find and also because the bird flu virus kills chickens quickly. At present influenza vaccines are made by using fertilised chicken eggs and as these eggs are only available seasonally there is sometimes a shortage of them and thus it is difficult to produce a steady supply of the vaccine which could hinder the response to a bird flu pandemic. This new bird flu vaccine could easily be made all year round and wouldn’t require so much detailed planning to make it.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine the new bird flu vaccine created a “strong immune response” in those participants who were given to doses of the drug. It is estimated that around fifteen pharmaceutical companies are pouring money into research for vaccines against the H5N1 virus, and this is good news because scientists say that when a bird flu pandemic does actually break out it may be of a form which is unexpected, and so that the more vaccines there are the more likely that one of them is going to be able to stop it.

Another thing that you should be aware of is that when testing is done on bird flu viruses it is not actually possible to give somebody the vaccine and then expose them to the bird flu virus because this (should the vaccine not work) could kill them. So instead scientists give volunteers the vaccine and then measure the immune response of antibodies to gauge results. The only real test of a vaccine will be when a bird flu pandemic breaks out.

The vaccine has been called Celvapan and is being manufactured at the Baxter International laboratories in the Czech Republic.