Standard vaccines can offer protection against H5N1 pandemic avian flu

A test vaccine has been found to be protective against a synthetic version of the H5N1 virus, but the result might not predict performance on real pandemic H5N1 Scientists may be able to protect humans from avian influenza viruses – before they have even evolved to spread among people. An experimental flu vaccine designed for a bird-specific H5N1 influenza virus can protect humans from a lab-made H5N1 strain engineered to pass among mammals. The finding is published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The vaccine was made the same way as seasonal flu shots. But it was tested on a synthetic H5N1 flu, tweaked to spread among ferrets, a model of human infection. Doing any research of this sort has been dogged by heated debate and self-imposed moratorium. “The transmissible viruses are very scary because H5N1 has a very high mortality rate,” says lead author James Crowe, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee....