Re: America -- Land of Opportunity -- for H5N1

On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:40:47 GMT, Joe Ellis
<synthfilker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>A lot of folks don't understand that you cannot make a vaccine for this
>"bird flu" until we actually have examples to work on... and that since
>the current strain doesn't move human-to-human, we have to wait for it
>to mutate.

We have samples of the bird flu and scientists have analyzed it and
made a vaccine for it that works on mice. When the bird flu mutates
into one that will strike readily at humans, formulating a vaccine
will be easy as a result of this initial work.

However a lot of people do not understand how antiquated the current
process for making a flu vaccine is. The lead time is about half a
year. Scientists can formulate a vaccine in time but under the current
system, the pandemic will be over by the time the first vaccine rolls
off the production line.

One of the key provisions of the Bush initiative are reforms to the
current process for certifying a vaccine and funding new vaccine
manufacturing techniques to cut the lead time. Another key provision
is to counter certain economic disincentives that have driven almost
all vaccine makers out of the market so we can get some more
manufacturers back to the business.

Last year's flu vaccine problem was due to the fact that the USA is
almost totally dependent on just one maker of flu vaccines. When
Chiron ran into quality control problems, the other certified
companies were unable to make up the shortfall. You do not want this
to happen again if you have to make a vaccine to fight a pandemic but
it can under the current system.

Danny
real e-mail address is dlow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

  • Australian firm to start trials of bird flu vaccine
    ... Rachel David said the vaccine against the H5N1 strain of avian flu ... Bird flu has killed a confirmed 64 people in Asia since late 2003. ... The Australian government gave CSL A$5 million in July ... Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. ...
    (soc.culture.cambodia)
  • Re: avian flu spreading fast, was changes in food
    ... >> Turkey (the country at the far end of Europe from mine, ... >> mass long-range bird migrations. ... Our govt has stockpiled a grossly inadequate number of vaccine shots ... so much worried about catching bird flu, ...
    (misc.rural)
  • Re: America -- Land of Opportunity -- for H5N1
    ... >possible that there could be different strains coming out of East Asia ... even though the basic bird flu is the same. ... Scientists can make flu vaccine today by ... human DNA sequence have given scientists new tools to analyze viral ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)
  • Re: America -- Land of Opportunity -- for H5N1
    ... >It is a mutated virus that is yet to mutate. ... >weeks for a working vaccine to be created. ... We can create vaccines for the current bird flu. ... The vaccine makers all have research efforts to get better ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)
  • Re: Follow-Up to Flu Vaccine Predictions
    ... > required to produce an annual flu vaccine dooms it to failure. ... strains usually persist for several years at a time. ... > There is no other logical possiblity until the long lead time is drastically ... strains were formulated in the vaccine, but the H3N2 was not. ...
    (sci.med)