New Bird Vaccine in the works

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Government Working on New Bird Flu Vaccine By MIKE

STOBBE, AP Medical Writer 20 minutes ago

Federal health officials announced plans Monday for a

second vaccine to protect people from bird flu because

the virus spreading among birds in Asia, Africa and

Europe is changing.

The government has several million doses of an earlier

bird flu vaccine, but it was based on a sample of

virus taken from Vietnam in 2004. The germ is believed

to have mutated enough since then that the form now

circulating in Africa and Europe may be different,

health officials said.

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U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt

said Monday he had authorized the National Institutes

of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control

and Prevention to begin working on a second vaccine

for humans.

" In order to be prepared, we need to continue to

develop new vaccines, " Leavitt said at an immunization

conference in Atlanta.

Government flu experts wouldn't speculate on whether

the earlier vaccine would still protect most people.

They said only that they believe it would be less

effective than a new vaccine based on a more recent

virus sample.

Calls for a second vaccine illustrate the challenge of

coming up with an effective shot to protect humans

from a strain of bird flu that might one day easily

jump to humans. So far, that hasn't happened, but if

it did, experts fear a worldwide, deadly flu epidemic.

Because all flu viruses constantly change, even making

a vaccine for ordinary human flu poses hurdles.

Health officials plan to base the second vaccine on a

sample taken from Indonesia last year, said

Donis, leader of the molecular genetics team at the

CDC's influenza branch.

The virus circulating in Indonesia is related to the

Vietnamese virus, but it is not a descendant and

causes a different immune system response, he said.

A vaccine based on the Vietnamese virus would be

protective for people in the Vietnam region, but less

effective against viruses circulating elsewhere, Donis

said.

He said that perhaps scientists will one day develop a

vaccine that protects against several different forms

of bird flu.

The U.S. government is already spending $250 million

for about 8 million doses against the Vietnamese

version of bird flu. Federal officials contracted with

two companies — Chiron Corp. and Sanofi Pasteur — for

those doses, and most already have been produced, said

Bill Hall, a spokesman for Health and Human Services.

The second vaccine must be developed and tested, and

HHS had no estimate for the cost of that work.

The World Health Organization has reported at least

174 human cases of bird flu, including 94 deaths since

2003.

So far, most if not all of the human victims were in

very close contact with infected birds, but health

officials worry that as bird flu spreads, it could

mutate into a strain that easily passes among people.

Dr. Margaret Chan, who is spearheading the WHO efforts

against the virus, said it poses a greater challenge

to the world than any previous infectious disease.

Since February, the virus has spread to birds in 17

new countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle

East, Chan said.

Poland on Monday confirmed its first outbreak of the

disease, saying laboratory tests found that two wild

swans died of the lethal strain.

Several cats have also tested positive for the deadly

strain in Austria's first reported case of the disease

spreading to an animal other than a bird, officials in

that country said Monday.

The WHO describes bird flu as unprecedented in its

scope as an animal disease, saying it is costing the

world's agriculture industry more than $10 billion and

affecting the livelihoods of 300 million farmers.

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