Australian firm to start trials of bird flu vaccine

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australian company CSL Ltd will begin
human trials of a bird flu vaccine next month as the government
warned travelers on Thursday about an outbreak of the deadly
virus in parts of Asia.

CSL is the world’s top maker of human plasma products and
spokeswoman Rachel David said the vaccine against the H5N1
strain of avian flu would be tested on 400 human volunteers.
Results were expected by the end of the year.

Bird flu has killed a confirmed 64 people in Asia since
late 2003. Indonesia is suffering an outbreak of the disease,
which has killed at least four people while 11 are under
observation in hospital with bird flu-like symptoms.

The Australian government gave CSL A$5 million in July to
fast-track development of a vaccine.

“What we’re testing in the trials is the dose that we need
to use for the vaccine to be effective. The technology is tried
and true but what we need to find out with this completely new
strain is whether the doses we are using are effective,” David
said.

She said if the tests were successful then the vaccine
could be rushed into production if needed.

“In an emergency, if the dose that we tested was successful
and the strain remains the same, it would take us three months
to produce 40 million doses. We would start to get the product
out of the factory within six weeks,” she said.

The most advanced bird flu vaccine is one developed by
France’s Sanofi-Aventis, which has proved effective at
stimulating an immune system response in healthy adults.

“That used an enormous dose of antigen. In fact, the dose
of antigen was so large that we wouldn’t even go down that path
because it would just take too long to make,” David said.
Antigen is the key vaccine component that triggers an immune
response.

“Essentially we are all sharing information so that whoever
comes up with the preferred process can share the information
as quickly as possible.”

U.S.-based Chiron Corp. aims to test its H5N1 vaccine later
this year and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline Plc plans large-scale
clinical trials in 2006.

The Australian government reissued a flood of travel
warnings for Asia to alert Australians to the bird flu
outbreak.

The H5N1 strain first emerged in Hong Kong in 1997, where
it killed six people, and surfaced again on the Korean
peninsula in 2003.

It has since been found in birds in Cambodia, China,
Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia,
Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.