Archive for the ‘Vaccines’ Category
A new drug has joined the fight against bird flu, also known as the avian flu: Prepandix. The European Commission has granted pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKlein a marketing license for the pre-pandemic vaccine .
According to the World Health Organization, vaccines are important for preventing influenza and the reduction of health consequences during a pandemic.
A pre-pandemic vaccine is produced in advance of a pandemic, based on the currently circulating avian H5N1 influenza virus likely to cause a pandemic, and has the ability to raise immune protection against potential drift H5N1 strains.
Pandemic vaccines won’t be available four to six months after a pandemic.
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According to Steven Gamblin and his co-workers at the National Institute for Medical Research in London and the University of St Andrews, going against the bird flu with Tamiflu may not be enough.
Mutations arising which have a selection advantage are very quickly exploited [by the virus],’ Gamblin says. ‘Our study suggests that stockpiling a single drug, oseltamivir, might not be sufficient if we are faced with a pandemic.
This was proven as molecular pictures of another drug, zanamivir, may be more effective than Tamiflu. Zanamivir can block the active site of the mutant enzyme.
The reason why nations are stock piling on Tamiflu is because it is cheaper.
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After confirming a bird flu outbreak earlier this year, the South Korean government isn’t taking this lightly. Besides culling all poultry in the affected areas, they have secured enough drugs against the dreaded disease for 2.5 million people.There hasn’t been any human cases in the country but they’ve taken precaution by vaccinating all the staff involved in the culling of the mentioned poultries.
Although the drugs weren’t identified, one is confirmed: oseltamivir, also known as Tamiflu and is manufactured by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche Holding Ltd. This may seem drastic on the part of the government, but at least they are preparing for the worst.
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We reported last time that a possible vaccine is in the works at Purdue; here’s another positive light on the vaccine coming from Vietnam.
The vaccine which is currently being trialled on thirty Military Medical Institute students have gotten good results so far. The vaccine manufacturer, Vabiotech, was given the go signal to try the vaccine on humans after a good show on animal experiments last year.
The vaccine was based on developed monkey kidney cells. Although this may be good for Vietnam, there might be some problems with other countries as World Health Organization representative, Sean Tobin reported:
“Certainly there would be some extra level of scrutiny required, if they were to try and use this vaccine in other countries,” he said.
“But Vabiotech do have a long experience with other kinds of vaccines using this monkey kidney cell technology, they feel, and the government here feels quite confident in those vaccines.”
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A new vaccine is being developed that may give protection against pathogenic bird flu, H5N1 and its mutations. Researchers at Purdue University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the new vaccine in mice, which gave a year-long protection against H5N1. Whether the same results will show in humans is yet to be proven.
The scientists are developing vaccines that can be stored in advance, can provide protection for a certain period until a matching vaccine can be developed for new variations of the bird flu. This vaccine is not produced by using eggs, which is the traditional method of producing flu vaccines. It uses an adjuvant so only lower doses are needed. The vaccine can also be stockpiled, making it available to more people.
More details of this exciting development, here.