Originally published December 8 2005
Purdue researchers investigate alternate ways to protect humans against bird flu
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Purdue molecular virologist Suresh Mittal and his colleagues are researching the use of a harmless adenovirus as a means of transmitting vaccine that will fight off avian influenza viruses.
A harmless virus used as a delivery vehicle may help set a roadblock for a potentially catastrophic human outbreak of bird flu, according to researchers at Purdue University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Purdue molecular virologist Suresh Mittal and his collaborators are investigating a new way to provide immunity against avian influenza viruses, or bird flu, the most lethal of which, H5N1, has a 50 percent fatality rate in humans.
Under a $1.6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the researchers are focusing on using a harmless virus, called adenovirus, as a transmitting agent for a vaccine to fight off highly virulent strains of the avian influenza viruses.
Mittal and collaborators Harm HogenEsch, co-principal investigator and head of Purdue's Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, and Jacqueline Katz and Suryaprakash Sambhara, both co-investigators from the CDC, are focused on creating better protection against the constantly mutating avian influenza viruses.
It takes months to produce a new vaccine for a new virus strain using this method and limits vaccine supplies due to shortages in eggs for the purpose.
Even with a recently developed vaccine based on growing a single protein of H5N1, it would be difficult to rapidly produce enough protective medication to stem a pandemic, according to experts from the CDC, World Health Organization and NIAID.
A "medium-level" bird flu pandemic in the United States would kill between 90,000 and 200,000 people with another 20 million to 47 million more sickened, CDC experts estimate.
Outbreaks of H5N1 in birds have been confirmed in 11 countries, and the disease is spreading north into countries outside of Southeast Asia and already has been reported in Russia.
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