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Italian Scientist Announces Bird Flu Vaccine Ready for Clinical Trials

Posted on: Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 09:01 CST

Text of report by Mario Pappagallo entitled "Bird flu vaccine: It works on animals" published by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera website on 28 January

The vaccine against the H5N1 virus, which is the cause of the type of avian influenza which is lethal to man, is ready for tests. The finishing touches have been put to it by an Italian, Andrea Gambotto (see photo), at the University of Pittsburgh, and Ismett, in Palermo. The same man who in 2003 prepared a vaccine against Sars.

The anti-H5N1 has had a 100 per cent success rate on animals (controlled tests by CDC, based in Atlanta), and it is now awaiting federal funds for the phase of clinical trials on humans. "Within six months we will get off the ground," Gambotto told Corriere della Sera . Described in the on-line version of the "Journal of Virology", the vaccine is different from the other anti-pandemic drugs currently being worked on throughout the world. It is of the recombinant variety. An adenovirus was taken, the common cold, and a key H5N1 protein was attached to it (hemagglutinin, or HA, which happens to be the anchorage for the virus to human lung cells), and a hybrid was created which is alive, but not infectious, one which is capable (if injected by the intramuscular method, or breathed in with a spray) to train the immune system of animals, and of humans, to immediately recognize an invasive H5N1, and destroy it.

In chickens and mice it has given total protection, and ought to do the same in humans. "We are waiting for the go-ahead for trials from the Food and Drugs Administration, and the federal funds necessary for preparing the doses for 72 volunteers whom we are selecting," explained Gambotto. In one year, at most, it could be ready for use. Work began in February 2004, when the genome of H5N1, isolated in a human case in Vietnam, arrived in Pittsburgh via email. Once copied and produced synthetically, in the space of a month the vaccine was ready, and it has proved effective in animals. "With two advantages - Gambotto went on to say - since it is a recombinant, it does not need to be produced in eggs like traditional vaccines, but is cultivated by cell lines, and modifications can be made quickly in the event of mutations in the H5N1."

Source: BBC Monitoring European

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