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Flu News for Senior Citizens
Maybe One-Two Punch Will Knock Out Deadly Bird Flu
Virus
Seeking solution to anti-Pandemic dilemma of not
knowing the virus we are trying to stop
 October 13, 2006 – Scientist around the world are
scrambling to find a vaccine that can prevent bird flu in humans and,
thus, protect humanity from a deadly pandemic. But there is a problem –
the bird flu virus we need to stop probably does not even exist, yet,
which makes it difficult to design a preventive medicine. But
researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center think they are
on to something – a one-two punch that has worked in a small trial.
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Basically, the strategy is an initial priming shot
given in advance. This study used a small group of people in Rochester,
New York, who were among the first Americans to be vaccinated against
bird flu when the disease first became a human threat in Hong Kong back
in 1997 and 1998. The two shots they got in 1998 were counted as their
priming shot.
Then they received punch two, a vaccination with
another shot targeting a different form of bird flu, the variant that
swept through Vietnam in 2004 and 2005.
Their immune response to the second shot was
compared to the response in people who received shots for the first time
in 2005. More than twice as many people who also received the shot in
1998 developed a protective antibody response against bird flu compared
to people who had never been immunized against bird flu previously.
So, the theory is that we can vaccinate people
against an existing form of avian flu – probably the one that seems to
be the most likely to morph into a new form that is more dangerous to
humans.
The findings help address this major question
facing public health officials: How to protect against a possible
pandemic caused by a virus whose precise viral make-up won't be known
until it has already become a threat?
Shortly after the Hong Kong threat, the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded a study in Rochester
of an experimental vaccine designed against that form of bird flu. Last
year scientists turned to the same group of volunteers, who represent a
unique pool of knowledge about bird flu, in a study to determine the
effects of giving a booster shot years after a person was originally
immunized.
Officials were able to track down 37 people who
agreed to take part. Each had received two shots as part of the vaccine
study in 1998 against the form of the virus that had emerged in Hong
Kong.
"We studied a relatively small group, so that
certainly, this issue needs to be studied more thoroughly in a larger
group of people," said John J. Treanor, M.D., professor of medicine and
director of Rochester's Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Unit.
"If the findings hold up, then it might open up a
number of options beneficial for planning. One might consider giving a
priming shot to members of the community who would be a central part of
the response if a pandemic were to occur, such as health care workers.
You'd have people who were prepared as much as possible in advance."
These results were presented at the annual meeting
of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.by research fellow Nega
Ali Goji, M.D., who did the study with Treanor.
The work addresses one of the features of bird flu
that makes a potential pandemic so hard to fight: Like human flu
viruses, bird flu mutates constantly, and by the time a vaccine has been
produced to protect against one form of bird flu, it's very possible
that another form, requiring a different vaccine, will have emerged that
can move from person to person.
The results of the new study are similar to what
doctors already know about giving "regular" flu shots. Every year
millions of adults get an updated flu shot every year – one shot is
enough, because their immune systems "remember" previous forms of the
flu and help make the new shot each year effective.
But small children who have never seen the flu
before typically need two shots, a primer and a booster. The results
from the new study indicate that, like small children who receive a
regular flu shot, adults who have never encountered bird flu would
benefit from a booster shot.
The two vaccines used in the study target viruses
belonging to different "clades" or viral families. Both are H5N1 bird
flu viruses, but the Hong Kong strain from 1997 belongs to clade 3,
while the Vietnam strain from 2004 belongs to clade 1.
Goji and Treanor found that the shot targeting
clade 3 helps the body maximize the immunization against a virus in a
different clade, clade 1. In other words, using the vaccines that are
available now might help improve the response to the vaccines developed
for a future strain of bird flu.
The authors expressed appreciation to the
volunteers in Rochester who took part in the nation's first U.S. human
bird flu study, back in 1998, at the University of Rochester Medical
Center.
At the University's VTEU, thanks to funding from
NIAID, more than 450 people have taken part in studies of bird flu
vaccine, more than nearly any city in the world.
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