Vaccine warning over swine flu
It will take six months for vaccine to be created for swine flu, health professionals warn (Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License)
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The first cases of swine flu, the disease that has killed more almost 150 people in Mexico, have been confirmed in the UK. |  |
Tuesday, 28, Apr 2009 06:04
It will take up to six months for a credible vaccine to be created for the recent outbreak of swine flu, experts have warned.
The H1N1 virus that has killed more than 150 people in Mexico, where it originated, and infected scores of people from North America to Europe, is an entirely new strain.
As the World Health Organisation raises its pandemic alert level to phase four on a six-point scale, pharmaceutical companies face an anxious wait before the virus can be contained and made safe.
"Swine flu has emerged in Mexico and in terms of vaccines the bird flu vaccines will not work, they're completely different," Dr Iain Stephenson, consultant in infectious diseases at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Leicester, told inthenews.co.uk.
"There is no vaccine at the moment, what will be happening is that companies will be waiting for WHO to get a hold of it and make it safe.
"It is unlikely that there is a widely available vaccine in the next six months, so, if you are simply relying on it, you run the risk that it will become a serious problem if it takes off."
Dr Stephenson, speaking to inthenews.co.uk from the south of France during a WHO meeting, is launching new research showing the benefits of pre-pandemic vaccines.
His study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to advocate pre-pandemic vaccines to avoid a costly six-month delay in the advent of an epidemic.
The research shows that people given the H5N1 avian influenza vaccine eight years ago still had an immune memory to the virus.
More than 1,600 people have been infected with H1N1 in Mexico, with the first cases of the virus confirmed in Spain and Britain on Monday.