Bird flu vaccine is called feasible
WASHINGTON -- Drug companies could quickly produce 270 million doses of a human vaccine for bird flu in the United States if it develops into a worldwide killer, US health officials said yesterday. Scientists have begun developing a vaccine to combat the outbreak of bird flu in Asia that has killed 19 people. The World Health Organization said tests so far show no sign of a killer hybrid virus that could easily pass between people.
No cases of bird flu in people have been seen so far in the United States. A strain of bird flu not known to be harmful to humans has been found in chickens in Delaware and New Jersey.
Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a congressional panel that health specialists are closely watching to see if the disease in Asia combines with the human influenza virus to create a more lethal version that could be spread between people. "If it does become more infectious in people and more able to move from person to person in a population that has no previous exposure with this, it really could take off," Gerberding said.A strain of bird flu has been found at four live chicken markets in northern New Jersey. State health officials stressed that the findings are not unusual for the state's live poultry markets and said the strain is not known to be harmful to humans.
"To the best of our knowledge, it's been a recurring problem for years," said Ed Wengryn, field representative for the New Jersey Farm Bureau.
Officials said the strain found in New Jersey is the same one found at two farms in Delaware since last week. The strain is not related to the virulent variety of avian influenza that is blamed for the deaths of at least 19 people in Vietnam and Thailand.
Gerberding said vaccine manufacturers could produce 270 million doses of vaccine for a single strain of bird flu over several months -- about the same time it takes to make the 85 million to 95 million doses of vaccine that are distributed annually to protect against three other flu strains.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said health specialists are especially worried after seeing the bird flu jump to humans in eight to nine countries at once.
"It's getting worse and worse. We usually see a chicken virus that jumps to humans in a very confined area," he said.
