Swine Flu Vaccine 6 Months Away

Swine flu vaccine is still  6 months away. Perhaps this will be ready for next years flu season.  However, with the rate at which viruses  mutate, it is possible that it would not even be effective for next year’s strain.  In either case, staying healthy, exercising regularly and eating the right foods can do  a lot to keep our immune systems’ strong. Studies have shown vitamin D to also be effective in preventing the flu, which likely explains why the flu is more dangerous during the winter and spring months, where there is less sunlight.

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Don’t wait around for new flu vaccine

The nation’s convoluted development process means protection against H1N1 virus won’t come for several months.

By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com senior writer

April 30, 2009: 4:18 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A day after the World Health Organization upgraded the swine flu to a “pandemic threat” level, the nation’s pharmaceutical industry warned that a vaccine to protect against the virus could still be at least six months away.

“It’s going to be very hard to be doing it any faster,” said Alan Goldhammer, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

The biggest obstacle is the egg-based technology used to develop all flu vaccines in the United States.

The process involves first growing the virus in chicken eggs, then harvesting it into vaccines.

Not only is this a time-consuming process, but Goldhammer points out that the quantity of the vaccine produced is limited to the egg’s volume.

“It’s only so fast that you can make a chicken lay eggs,” said Goldhammer.

“It’s a 1940s technology that’s not efficient anymore,” said Devon Herrick, senior fellow with non-profit research group the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA).. He said a cell-based technology not approved in the United States — but used in Europe — could cut the vaccine development time to 13 weeks from its current 24 weeks.

Competition for eggs: Complicating matters is the fact that the cumbersome U.S. vaccine process was already gearing up to treat a different strain of the flu later this year.

At the beginning of each year — usually in January — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tries to predict what new virus strains will hit the United States nine to 12 months later. The government has not revealed the 2009-10 strain.

To do this, the CDC looks at flu strains that have already impacted Asia, said Herrick. Once the agency agrees on a strain for all manufacturers to develop into a vaccine, commercial scale production usually begins in March for market availability in late September to October.

That process had already started when the swine flu or H1N1 virus struck Mexico. Now the two strains will compete for the limited resources manufacturers have to develop seasonal vaccines.

“In general, the normal flu vaccine given in October and November is about 80 to 100 million doses,” said Goldhammer. “‘We’re talking about producing 70 to 80 million doses just for swine flu.”

Goldhammer said vaccine makers also need to run multiple tests to find the right dose for each vaccine to determine the necessary immunity against the virus.

The roadblocks to speedy production don’t end there. Goldhammer said only six companies last year manufactured flu vaccines and two of them are relatively small…read rest of story

How Not To Catch the Swine Flu

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Swine Flu Can No Longer Be Contained!- WHO says

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WHO flu expert Dr Keiji Fukuda: “Containment is not a feasible operation”

A deadly swine flu virus first detected in Mexico can no longer be contained, a World Health Organization (WHO) official has said.

WHO Assistant Director General Keiji Fukuda said countries should now focus on mitigating the effects of the virus.

The WHO has raised its alert level from three to four, two steps short of declaring a full pandemic.

Mexico earlier said it believed 149 people had now died from the swine flu, though only 20 cases are confirmed.

The US, Canada, Spain and Britain have confirmed milder versions.

‘Not inevitable’

The WHO’s decision to raise the alert level to four came after an emergency meeting of experts, brought forward by a day because of concerns over the outbreak.

evel four means the virus is showing a sustained ability to pass from human to human, and is able to cause community-level outbreaks.

“What this can really be interpreted as is a significant step towards pandemic influenza. But also, it is a phase that says we are not there yet,” Mr Fukuda said.

“In other words, at this time we think we have taken a step in that direction, but a pandemic is not considered inevitable.”

He said the virus had become too widespread to make containment a feasible option, and said countries must focus on trying to put measures in place to protect the population.

He also stressed that the experts did not recommend closing borders or restricting travel. “With the virus being widespread… closing borders or restricting travel really has very little effects in stopping the movement of this virus,” he said.

The first batches of a swine flu vaccine could be ready between four to six months, but it will take several more months to produce large quantities of it, Mr Fukuda said.

Health experts say the virus comes from the same strain that causes seasonal outbreaks in humans. But they say this newly-detected version contains genetic material from versions of flu which usually affect pigs and birds.

Mexico deaths

Earlier, Mexico’s Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said the suspected death toll from swine flu had now risen from just over 100 to 149. Of that number, 20 have been confirmed as swine flu.

All of those who had died were aged between 20 and 50, he said. Infections among young healthy adults was a characteristic of past pandemics….read more here…

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Swine Flu Vaccine of 1976- More Harm than Good?

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Will history repeat itself?  Baxter pharmaceuticals is preparing a new swine flu vaccine. Unfortunately, this could take several months to develop. However, it would be unlikely for the flu to continue into the summer months as influenza is traditionally a Winter/Spring infection. This is possibly due to uv light’s ability to kill viruses. In addition, studies show that when one’s vitamin D blood levels are higher, as they are in the summer, they are less likely to develop the flu.

Swine flu ‘debacle’ of 1976 is recalled

The episode triggered an enduring public backlash against flu vaccination, embarrassed the federal government and cost the director of the CDC his job.

By Shari Roan

4:13 PM PDT, April 26, 2009

Warren D. Ward, 48, was in high school when the swine flu threat of 1976 swept the U.S. The Whittier man remembers the episode vividly because a relative died in the 1918 flu pandemic and the 1976 illness was feared to be a direct descendant of the deadly virus.

“The government wanted everyone to get vaccinated,” Ward said. “But the epidemic never really broke out. It was a threat that never materialized.”

What did materialize were cases of a rare side effect thought to be linked to the shot. The unexpected development cut short the vaccination effort — an unprecedented national campaign — after 10 weeks.

The episode triggered an enduring public backlash against flu vaccination, embarrassed the federal government and cost the director of the U.S. Center for Disease Control, now known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his job.

The pandemic fears of the time and the resulting vaccine controversy may be fueling some of the public’s — and media’s — anxiety about the current outbreak, said health officials who recalled the previous event.

Ward said his family discussed the vaccine in 1976 and decided not to get it. If a vaccine is ordered for this latest threat, he said, “I’m not getting it. I felt back then like it was a bunch of baloney.”

The swine flu brush of 1976 — some call it a debacle — holds crucial lessons for the government and health officials who must decide how to react to the new swine flu threat in the days and weeks ahead, said those involved in the 1976 experience.

For starters, officials must keep the public informed. They must admit what they know and don’t know. They must have a plan ready should the health threat become dangerous. And they must soothe everyone’s nerves with reassurances that there is no need to worry in the meantime.

It’s a tall order. Doubts about the government’s ability to handle a possible flu pandemic linger from three decades ago, said Dr. Richard P. Wenzel, chairman of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, who diagnosed some of the early cases in 1976.

However, health experts today know much more about influenza, vaccines and the public’s reaction to both, he said.

“I think we’re going to have to be cautious,” Wenzel said. “Hopefully, there will be a lot of good, honest public health discussion about what happened in 1976.”

Officials should be prepared for plenty of second-guessing, especially for any decisions regarding vaccination, which was at the core of the 1976 controversy, said Dr. David J. Sencer, the CDC director who led the government’s response to the threat and was later fired.

“There were good things and bad things about it,” said Sencer, who is retired and lives in the Atlanta area. “People have to make science the priority. They have to rely on science rather than politics.”

The question of whether politics overtook science in 1976 still haunts those involved and has been the fodder of books, articles and discussions for 33 years.

The panic in 1976 was due in part to the belief — now known to be erroneous — that the 1918-19 flu pandemic, which killed half a million Americans and an estimated 20 million people worldwide, was caused by a virus with swine components. Recent research suggests instead that it was avian flu — but that seems unlikely to assuage the anxiety over the current outbreak.

The episode began in February 1976, when an Army recruit at Ft. Dix, N.J., fell ill and died from a swine flu virus thought to be similar to the 1918 strain. Several other soldiers at the base also became ill. Shortly thereafter, Wenzel and his colleagues reported two cases of the flu strain in Virginia.

“That raised the concern that the original cluster at Ft. Dix had spread beyond New Jersey,” said Wenzel, former president of the International Society for Infectious Diseases.

At the CDC, Sencer solicited the opinions of infectious disease specialists nationwide and, in March, called on President Ford and Congress to begin a mass inoculation. The $137-million program began in early October, but within days reports emerged that the vaccine appeared to increase the risk for Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological condition that causes temporary paralysis but can be fatal.

Waiting in long lines at schools and clinics, more than 40 million Americans — almost 25% of the population — received the swine flu vaccine before the program was halted in December after 10 weeks.

More than 500 people are thought to have developed Guillain-Barre syndrome after receiving the vaccine and 25 died. No one completely understands what causes Guillain-Barre in certain people, but the condition can develop after a bout with infection or following surgery or vaccination. The federal government paid millions in damages to people who developed the condition or their families.

However, the pandemic, which some experts estimated at the time could infect 50 million to 60 million Americans, never unfolded. Only about 200 cases of swine flu and one death were ultimately reported in the U.S., the CDC said.

The public viewed the entire episode as political farce, said Sencer, instead of a dedicated, science-based effort to protect public health. He said the government chose to err on the side of caution and risk scorn — something that experts working on the current outbreak may also face.

“If we had that knowledge then, we might have done things differently,” Sencer said. “We did not know what sort of virus we were dealing with in those days. No one knew we would have Guillain-Barre syndrome. The flu vaccine had been used for many years without that happening. If that hadn’t happened, no one would have had any concern about the program.”

Wenzel also recommended vaccination in 1976.….read the rest of the story….

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Swine Flu Strange Genetic Combination?

Was this swine flu the result of a science experiment gone bad or simply a fluke of nature?

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Published: 04.24.2009

Newly found flu mixes pig, bird, human viruses

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ATLANTA — Health officials are investigating a never-before-seen form of the flu that combines pig, bird and human viruses and which has infected seven people in California and Texas. All the victims recovered, but the cases are a growing medical mystery because it’s unclear how they caught the virus.

None of the seven people was in contact with pigs, which is how people usually catch swine flu. And only a few were in contact with each other, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, health officials said it’s not a cause for public alarm. The five in California and two in Texas all have recovered, and testing indicates some mainstream anti-viral medications seem to work against the virus.

Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC said officials believe that it can spread human-to-human, which is unusual for a swine flu virus.

The CDC is checking people who have been in contact with the seven people with confirmed cases, who all became ill from late March to mid-April.

Because of intensive searching, it’s likely that health officials will find additional cases, said Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

CDC officials detected a virus with a unique combination of gene segments that have not been seen in people or pigs before. The bug contains a human virus, an avian virus from North America and pig viruses from North America, Europe and Asia.

Health officials have seen mixes of bird, pig and human virus before, but never such an intercontinental combination with more than one pig virus in the mix.

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