Archive for the ‘CDC Communication’ Category
CNN – Expert Answers – Keeping Your Family Healthy
CNN – Living Well Expert Dr. Jennifer Shu Pediatrician,Children’s Medical Group -Â answers a viewers question -Â How can I keep my family healthy if one of us has H1N1?
Asked by Kim, Georgia
“My son was found to have H1N1 flu and has to stay home from school. How can we keep the rest of the family from getting sick?”
Expert answer
Thanks for your question. Many of the patients I see in my practice have voiced similar concerns. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 1 million Americans have been infected with H1N1 influenza since April 2009. There is a 10 to 20 percent chance of getting H1N1 from a household contact, although studies vary, and the risk may be much higher. Here are some steps I advise my patients to take to minimize their chances of getting this illness.
Keep your distance. Place your child in a separate room of house as much as possible, and consider taking his meals to him. People who are at high risk of complications from influenza (such as young children under 5, pregnant women and individuals with certain medical conditions such as asthma or heart disease) are advised to stay at least 6 feet away, so as to avoid being exposed to droplets from the sick person’s coughs or sneezes.
Hands off. Avoid holding or shaking hands with sick people in general. In fact, I try to avoid shaking hands whenever possible, especially during cold and flu season. If hand-to-hand contact occurs, wash your hands or use a sanitizer rub immediately afterwards.
Keep objects and surfaces clean. Occupy your child with books and toys that can be washed easily. Clean doorknobs, refrigerator handles and sink faucets with a household disinfectant.
Discourage sharing. Germs are one of the few things in life you won’t want your child to share so avoid sharing drinks, utensils and towels.
Cover the cough. Teach your child to cough or sneeze into a tissue (and then throw it away and wash his hands right away) or into his sleeve or elbow. You may also wish to cover his face (or yours) with a face mask that fits as snugly as comfortably possible.
Consider antiviral medicines. Medications such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) taken by household members may help prevent them from developing H1N1 infection. Ask your doctor if this type of prevention is recommended for your situation.
Cuddle carefully. If you hug your child while he’s sick, do so with your face turned away from his. Avoid kissing on the mouth.
Air out your home. Open the windows or turn on a fan in common areas such as kitchens, family rooms and bathrooms.
Bide your time. People tend to get sick from H1N1 within about seven days of being exposed to someone with the illness. The sick person is most contagious during the first few days of influenza, although infants and young children can continue shedding the virus for longer than a week. If a week has passed since your son first got sick and you don’t have any symptoms, there’s a good chance you will not become infected by him.
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CDC’s Advice to Parents: Swine Flu Shots for All
Here’s the most important advice you’ll get on how to protect your family during the Swine Flu Pandemic. Straightforward, no nonsense insight on how to keep swine flu at bay – keep your children from getting the flu AND what to do if you or your kids become infected with the swine flu. Did you know there are two types of swine flu? Read more here
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Tuesday, August 25, 2009Â
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The first swine flu precaution that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests for parents: As soon as a vaccine is available, try to get it for everyone in your family.
Following are other CDC recommendations for parents:
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– All members of the household should wash their hands frequently, using soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Antibacterial soaps are no better than ordinary soaps, since swine flu is caused by a virus, not by bacteria.
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– Teach children to use tissues to cover the nose and mouth when sneezing or coughing. If tissues are unavailable, the crook of an elbow or a shoulder is a good substitute — not the hands, which can spread the virus to whatever they touch.
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– Anyone who becomes sick — flu symptoms include fever, sore throat, coughing, chills, fatigue and a runny nose — should stay home for at least 24 hours after the fever is gone. If symptoms worsen, children should extend their stay at home for seven more days, no matter how soon they feel better. This means home, not just out of school: “Children shouldn’t be . . . mixing in crowds or going to malls when they are sick,” said Lance Chilton, a member of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices. And once any member of a household gets sick, all school-age children should remain home for five days.
– Children should receive emergency care if their breathing becomes rapid or if they have trouble breathing, develop bluish or gray skin color or severe or persistent vomiting, or if their flulike symptoms improve but come back with a fever and more severe cough. Resistance to drinking adequate amounts of water, irritability and a difficulty waking up and interacting with others are also warning signs.
Adults who experience difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen, sudden dizziness, confusion, severe or persistent vomiting and flulike symptoms that improve but come back with a fever and more severe cough should also seek emergency care.
Besides the CDC Web site, http://www.cdc.gov, information on the H1N1 virus can be found at these sites:
The Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/swine-flu/AN02000
U.S. government: http://www.flu.gov
Science News – CDC Anticipates H1N1 Pandemic
The most at-risk segment of the population — pregnant women, those with chronic diseases, healthcare and emergency medical workers, and children — will be the first recipients, the Centers for Disease Control indicated.
Public health experts say people might be asked to stay away from crowded areas for up to four months to keep spread of H1N1 to a minimum. Dr. Bruce Lee, a University of Pittsburgh infectious diseases expert, said such “social distancing” measures can help to lessen the epidemic.
“Pay very close attention to what the CDC and what other public health officials are saying and take it seriously,” he said.
Some federal government estimates indicate up to 40 percent of the population could get swine flu in the next two years.
CDC Says Pregnant Women With Flu Symptoms Should Receive Anti-Viral Drugs
 
JULY 29, 2009, 12:18 P.M. ETÂ Â
WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday pregnant women suspected of having the flu should be promptly treated with antiviral medications.
The CDC, in a study set to be published in the medical journal Lancet, said pregnant women are more severely impacted by the H1N1 virus. CDC said pregnant women had higher rates of hospitalization and a greater risk of death compared to the general population.
The study looked at the impact of H1N1 flu on pregnant women from mid-April, when the new virus was first discovered, to June 16. Of 45 U.S. deaths from the H1N1 flu, six were in pregnant women, which represented 13% of deaths at the time. CDC said of the 34 cases of pandemic H1N1 in pregnant women were reported to the agency from April 15 to May 18, 11 women, or 32% were admitted to the hospital.
The CDC has said more than one million Americans have likely been sickened by the H1N1 flu and more than 300 people have died as of July 24.
The lead author of the study, Denise Jamieson, said doctors who treat pregnant women shouldn’t delay in starting antiviral treatment with Tamiflu, made by Roche Holding AG, or GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s Relenza.
“Some clinicians hesitate treating pregnant women with antiviral medications because of concerns for the developing fetus, but this is the wrong approach,” she said.
All of the pregnant women who died from H1N1 complications flu were healthy prior to infection of H1N1. They subsequently developed viral pneumonia, and later died. CDC said they did not receive antivirals soon enough to benefit their treatment. It’s recommended that antiviral treatment be started within 48 hours after symptoms begin.
CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices meets later Wednesday to discuss which groups should be vaccinated if government officials decide to move forward with an H1N1 influenza vaccination campaign. Pregnant women, school-age children and health-care workers are expected to be at the top of the list. The earliest an H1N1 vaccine would be available would be mid-October.
Most companies making the vaccines for the U.S. market, including Sanofi Aventis, Novartis AG, GlaxoSmithKline PLC and CSL Ltd, have said the viruses used to make the active ingredient are producing yields of just 30% of what’s typically seen with seasonal vaccines.
Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com
Federal panel issues H1N1 vaccine guidelines
CNN Senior Medical Producer
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — A federal advisory committee issued sweeping guidelines Wednesday for a vaccination campaign against the pandemic swine flu strain, identifying more than half the U.S. population as targets for the first round of vaccinations.
The advisory panel’s guidelines don’t trigger the start of vaccinations but are usually accepted by the government.
The priority groups include pregnant women; health care and emergency services personnel; children, adolescents and young adults up to age 24; household and caregiver contacts of children younger than six months; and healthy adults with certain medical conditions.
The guidelines were approved in a near-unanimous vote by the 15-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. One person dissented on whether to include people ages 19 to 24 among those targeted.
The vote does not trigger a decision to vaccinate against the disease, also called H1N1, but the federal government typically follows the committee’s recommendations.
The recommendations could prove especially important if the pandemic strain, which emerged this spring, spreads widely before sufficient quantities of vaccine can be produced to protect everyone. The recommendations are intended to ensure that members of the most vulnerable groups get priority.
Earlier Wednesday, federal officials said they are on track to initiate a mass vaccination campaign by October, although many details remain to be worked out. Clinical trials to assess vaccine safety and efficacy are just getting under way at a handful of centers across the country.
Dr. William Schaffner, a flu researcher at Vanderbilt University, which is running one of the clinical trials, played down safety concerns that have been raised because safety data are limited.
“There is no alternative” to approving the new vaccine based on the limited data, he said. Fortunately, he added, “the novel H1N1 vaccine is created exactly the same way our seasonal vaccine is created, year in and year out.”
Dr. Wellington Sun of the Food and Drug Administration said data from those trials would probably be available in September.
However, Dr. Robin Robinson, director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority at the Department of Health and Human Services, said that that even if federal regulators determine that the vaccine is safe and effective, it would take an additional four to six weeks before it could be packaged and available to the public.
About half of Americans — 159 million — fall into one of the five main target groups, including 102 million people aged 6 to 18.
Robinson had predicted earlier that 120 million vaccine doses would most likely be available within a month after the campaign starts.
Dr. Anthony Fiore of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who led the group’s deliberations, said it made sense to target such a large group because it appears that vaccine supplies will be sufficient.
Part of that estimate is based on experience with seasonal flu vaccine; Fiore said that, typically, only 20 percent to 50 percent of people in targeted groups seek out seasonal flu vaccine.
Even if two doses of the swine flu vaccine are required to confer protection — something that will be determined in clinical trials — suppliers would probably be able to ramp up production quickly enough to meet demand, Fiore said.
But the advisory committee approved a backup plan in case supplies are more limited. In such a case, the priority groups would be pregnant women, health care and emergency services workers with direct patient contact, household contacts of children younger than 6 months, children age 6 months to 4 years and children younger than 19 with chronic medical conditions — a total of 42 million people.
The panel also recommended that, once sufficient supplies exist to meet the needs of all targeted groups, the vaccine should be offered to healthy adults ages 25 to 64. Once those needs are met, vaccinations would be recommended for people older than 65.
The targeted groups differ starkly from the recommendations for seasonal flu vaccine campaigns, which include people 65 and older in the highest-risk group.
The difference is based largely on data showing vastly higher infection rates among younger people; the rate of laboratory-confirmed cases in Americans 65 and older is just 0.06 per 100,000, compared with 2.6 per 100,000 for the group with the highest infection rates, children 5 to 11.
Studies have found that many older Americans carry at least some antibody protection against the new virus, probably because it is similar to flu viruses that circulated widely in the 1920s through the early 1950s.
Some of the most alarming complications have been seen in pregnant women. A paper published Wednesday in the journal Lancet reported that pregnant women infected with H1N1 are more likely to be hospitalized and even die. Of the 45 H1N1 deaths reported to the CDC between April 15 and June 16, six (13 percent) were among pregnant women.
Obesity has not been determined to be a risk factor, Fiore said.
The H1N1 flu vaccination campaign would run concurrent with the usual seasonal flu campaign, which the committee recommended get under way as soon as possible.
Vanderbilt’s Schaffner said patients should get the seasonal vaccine before distribution centers are swamped with demand for the pandemic vaccine.
But he also warned that the new vaccine might be of limited use. “The virus and the vaccine are in a race; the virus may win,” he said.
If the pandemic strain starts spreading fast between now and October, he said, hospitals and medical personnel will be pushed to the limit.
“It’s like thinking about a hurricane. You batten down the hatches. You do everything you can. But when the hurricane arrives, damage will occur. This one is going to be a doozy.”
New Push in H1N1 Flu Fight Set for Start of School
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July 18, 2009
U.S. health officials are preparing intensively to combat an anticipated wave of outbreaks of the new H1N1 flu when children return to school and the pace of cases picks up.
Zuma PressKenya Bell, left, stands with daughter, Nyeree, who along with several others came down with the flu at an American Lung Association camp in California.
Anne Schuchat, chief of immunization and respiratory diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Friday that the agency expects an increase in cases before the normal start of the flu season in mid-autumn, because children are likely to spread it to one another once they go back to school. Infectious diseases normally spread readily among children, and this virus has hit children and young adults harder than the elderly, who normally suffer the heaviest toll from flu.
“We’ve seen it in camps and military units,” Dr. Schuchat said. “I’m expecting when school reopens and kids are all back together, in some communities at least we may see an increase.”
The number of confirmed U.S. infections is now 40,617, with 263 deaths, the CDC said Friday. But the agency believes that more than one million people have been infected and weren’t tested for the virus or didn’t visit a doctor. The disease has become so widespread that the agency will probably suspend tallying individual case counts within the next few weeks and focus instead on tracking clusters, severe cases, deaths and other unusual events — a more traditional approach to tracking diseases, Dr. Schuchat said.
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The CDC would be following the WHO, which said on Thursday that it is abandoning individual case counts.
Most of those who have the new flu get only mildly ill for a few days and don’t need treatment. But officials are concerned about the virus because it is new and could easily mutate and become more virulent as it spreads through the population. Argentina declared a nationwide animal-health emergency Friday after finding the virus possibly jumped from humans to two pig herds, a development that flu experts say could potentially spur mutations. The country’s death toll from the virus stands at 137.
Global officials are also concerned because the new H1N1 virus has caused severe illness in some children and young people. Some recently published studies suggest it can cause more severe illness than seasonal flu. Deaths from flu are normally rare among children and young adults, who account for the bulk of the U.S. deaths from the pandemic strain. Nor is it clear why the virus is striking pregnant women, as well as people with asthma, diabetes and other conditions hard.
To combat the virus, federal officials are preparing to mount a massive immunization campaign, and are also urging communities, businesses and individuals to make contingency plans for possible school closures, multiple employee absences for illness, surges of patients in hospitals and other effects of potentially widespread outbreaks.
Clinical trials are expected to begin later this month to test whether a vaccine developed to combat the virus is safe and effective, and the CDC is working with state and local public-health authorities to figure out how to get as many as 600 million doses, or two for every U.S. resident, into people’s arms. Results of the trials aren’t expected until early October, but officials say they expect to have the first 100 million doses of vaccine ready by mid-October.
The WHO and some vaccine manufacturers reported this week that the vaccine was proving difficult to manufacture because the viruses used to make the shots are yielding only 25% to 50% of the active ingredient they normally get for flu vaccines.
But Dr. Schuchat said that wasn’t affecting the U.S. government’s plans. “We haven’t heard news that has changed our expectations for vaccine availability in the fall,” she said. “Based on what has been described to us so far, it’s within the range of our planning assumptions, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have more surprises.”
Key Facts About Swine Influenza – CDC/Control & Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/key_facts.htm
Swine Flu
What is Swine Influenza?
Swine Influenza (swine flu) is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pigs. Swine flu viruses cause high levels of illness and low death rates in pigs. Swine influenza viruses may circulate among swine throughout the year, but most outbreaks occur during the late fall and winter months similar to outbreaks in humans. The classical swine flu virus (an influenza type A H1N1 virus) was first isolated from a pig in 1930.
How many swine flu viruses are there?
Like all influenza viruses, swine flu viruses change constantly. Pigs can be infected by avian influenza and human influenza viruses as well as swine influenza viruses. When influenza viruses from different species infect pigs, the viruses can reassort (i.e. swap genes) and new viruses that are a mix of swine, human and/or avian influenza viruses can emerge. Over the years, different variations of swine flu viruses have emerged. At this time, there are four main influenza type A virus subtypes that have been isolated in pigs: H1N1, H1N2, H3N2, and H3N1. However, most of the recently isolated influenza viruses from pigs have been H1N1 viruses.
Swine Flu in Humans
Can humans catch swine flu?
Swine flu viruses do not normally infect humans. However, sporadic human infections with swine flu have occurred. Most commonly, these cases occur in persons with direct exposure to pigs (e.g. children near pigs at a fair or workers in the swine industry). In addition, there have been documented cases of one person spreading swine flu to others. For example, an outbreak of apparent swine flu infection in pigs in Wisconsin in 1988 resulted in multiple human infections, and, although no community outbreak resulted, there was antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient.
How common is swine flu infection in humans?
In the past, CDC received reports of approximately one human swine influenza virus infection every one to two years in the U.S., but from December 2005 through February 2009, 12 cases of human infection with swine influenza have been reported. For information on the number of probable and confirmed cases of novel H1N1 flu in humans see Novel H1N1 Flu Situation Update.
Can people catch swine flu from eating pork?
No. Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You can not get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork and pork products is safe. Cooking pork to an internal temperature of 160°F kills the swine flu virus as it does other bacteria and viruses.
How does swine flu spread?
Influenza viruses can be directly transmitted from pigs to people and from people to pigs. Human infection with flu viruses from pigs are most likely to occur when people are in close proximity to infected pigs, such as in pig barns and livestock exhibits housing pigs at fairs. Human-to-human transmission of swine flu can also occur. This is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu occurs in people, which is mainly person-to-person transmission through coughing or sneezing of people infected with the influenza virus. People may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
What do we know about human-to-human spread of swine flu?
In September 1988, a previously healthy 32-year-old pregnant woman was hospitalized for pneumonia and died 8 days later. A swine H1N1 flu virus was detected. Four days before getting sick, the patient visited a county fair swine exhibition where there was widespread influenza-like illness among the swine. In follow-up studies, 76% of swine exhibitors tested had antibody evidence of swine flu infection but no serious illnesses were detected among this group. Additional studies suggest that one to three health care personnel who had contact with the patient developed mild influenza-like illnesses with antibody evidence of swine flu infection.
How can human infections with swine influenza be diagnosed?
To diagnose swine influenza A infection, a respiratory specimen would generally need to be collected within the first 4 to 5 days of illness (when an infected person is most likely to be shedding virus). However, some persons, especially children, may shed virus for 7 days or longer. Identification as a swine flu influenza A virus requires sending the specimen to CDC for laboratory testing.
What medications are available to treat swine flu infections in humans?
There are four different antiviral drugs that are licensed for use in the US for the treatment of influenza: amantadine, rimantadine, oseltamivir and zanamivir. While most swine influenza viruses have been susceptible to all four drugs, the most recent H1N1 influenza viruses isolated from humans are resistant to amantadine and rimantadine.
What other examples of swine flu outbreaks are there?
Probably the most well known is an outbreak of swine flu among soldiers in Fort Dix, New Jersey in 1976. The virus caused disease with x-ray evidence of pneumonia in at least 4 soldiers and 1 death; all of these patients had previously been healthy. The virus was transmitted to close contacts in a basic training environment, with limited transmission outside the basic training group. The virus is thought to have circulated for a month and disappeared. The source of the virus, the exact time of its introduction into Fort Dix, and factors limiting its spread and duration are unknown. The Fort Dix outbreak may have been caused by introduction of an animal virus into a stressed human population in close contact in crowded facilities during the winter. The swine influenza A virus collected from a Fort Dix soldier was named A/New Jersey/76 (Hsw1N1).
Swine Flu in Pigs
How does swine flu spread among pigs?
Swine flu viruses are thought to be spread mostly through close contact among pigs and possibly from contaminated objects moving between infected and uninfected pigs. Herds with continuous swine flu infections and herds that are vaccinated against swine flu may have sporadic disease, or may show only mild or no symptoms of infection.
What are signs of swine flu in pigs?
Signs of swine flu in pigs can include sudden onset of fever, depression, coughing (barking), discharge from the nose or eyes, sneezing, breathing difficulties, eye redness or inflammation, and going off feed.
How common is swine flu among pigs?
H1N1 and H3N2 swine flu viruses are endemic among pig populations in the United States and something that the industry deals with routinely. Outbreaks among pigs normally occur in colder weather months (late fall and winter) and sometimes with the introduction of new pigs into susceptible herds. Studies have shown that the swine flu H1N1 is common throughout pig populations worldwide, with 25 percent of animals showing antibody evidence of infection. In the U.S. studies have shown that 30 percent of the pig population has antibody evidence of having had H1N1 infection. More specifically, 51 percent of pigs in the north-central U.S. have been shown to have antibody evidence of infection with swine H1N1. Human infections with swine flu H1N1 viruses are rare. There is currently no way to differentiate antibody produced in response to flu vaccination in pigs from antibody made in response to pig infections with swine H1N1 influenza.
Is there a vaccine for swine flu?
Vaccines are available to be given to pigs to prevent swine influenza. There is no vaccine to protect humans from swine flu. The seasonal influenza vaccine will likely help provide partial protection against swine H3N2, but not swine H1N1 viruses.
How Fast Could a Swine Flu Vaccine Be Produced?
A doctor at the Centers for Disease Control examines specimens of the 1918 pandemic influenza virus, part of an effort to develop new vaccines and treatments for future pandemic influenza viruses
With the first reported death from the 2009 H1N1 flu, or swine flu, in the U.S., the Federal Government and flu-vaccine manufacturers are preparing for the possibility that a new vaccine will be necessary to control the outbreak. Should the call for vaccine production come from health officials, both traditional and newer, faster vaccine-making methods could be employed.
Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the agency has begun cultivating the seed stock of virus needed for a swine flu vaccine. (The current seasonal flu vaccine would not be effective against the swine flu.) “We’re moving forward aggressively so that if a decision is made that we need to rev up production to make that vaccine, we would be ready to do so,” he said.
But even if the CDC’s seed stock of virus were to be released to vaccine makers today, it would take the companies anywhere from four to six months before the first inoculation could be ready for public use. That’s because flu-vaccine production — whether for swine or seasonal flu — is time-consuming and laborious, requiring vaccine makers to grow millions of copies of the flu virus in chicken eggs, then purify those bugs into a ready-to-inject formula safe for patients. “We are moving things around to accommodate this and getting our raw materials ready and having our scientists ready. We are on alert, waiting on the CDC. We’re in daily contact with them,” says Donna Cary, spokeswoman for Sanofi Pasteur, which currently makes 50 million doses of the seasonal flu vaccine used in the U.S. each year.
But if and when the CDC gives the go-ahead, companies such as Sanofi will have to do an about-face, scrapping their current vaccine projects to switch to swine flu. Sanofi and other vaccine makers received the seed stock for the upcoming flu season last January and are now in the midst of culturing and purifying that virus for this fall’s flu season.
History teaches us, however, that it won’t be easy. The last time the U.S. recommended nationwide vaccination against a suspected swine flu was in 1976, with less than successful results, to say the least. Under orders from President Gerald Ford, a vaccine was rushed into production and administered to 45 million Americans, at a cost of $135 million. But within weeks, people started developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing immune-system disorder that can result from the vaccine. Some experts estimated the risk of Guillain-Barré as being seven times higher in those who were immunized vs. those who were not. After the immunization program was terminated nine months after it began, government officials paid $90 million in damages to patients who were injured by the vaccine. The widely feared swine flu epidemic never emerged.
Much has changed since then. Genetic advances have given researchers entirely new ways of developing vaccines. For example, instead of using the entire virus or bacterium to activate the human immune system, new strategies rely on genetic snippets from infectious bugs, which can trigger immunity without the risk of infection.
At the biotech company Novavax, researchers are testing the use of virus-like particles (VLP), instead of the virus itself, to stimulate a flu immune response. Using this method, a vaccine for the 2009 H1N1 virus could be in production in 10 to 12 weeks, rather than the usual four to six months. “We have made vaccines against multiple flu strains and tested them in humans and gotten relevant and robust immune responses, which checks off the major boxes that the technology works against flu,” says Rahul Singhvi, president and CEO of Novavax.
Novavax’s strategy involves isolating three proteins from the virus that flag the human immune system, which then churns out neutralizing antibodies against the proteins. These antibodies are robust enough to fight off the actual virus should an immunized person become infected. This is the same way the recently developed vaccine against human papilloma virus, Gardasil, works. “It provides the look and feel of the flu virus but does not have the genetic materials to cause disease,” Singhvi says.
A VLP vaccine may also prove easier to develop since all it requires is an accurate genetic sequence of three critical virus genes. That could especially help with swine flu, since researchers found back in the 1970s that the virus doesn’t grow well in chicken eggs; that could slash the yield and slow production of a potential new vaccine. “As long as we get the genetic sequence of some viral proteins, it doesn’t matter where the virus came from — human, swine or bird,” says Singhvi. So far, Novavax’s shot is still in the testing phase, but its VLP-based vaccines against seasonal and bird flu are providing good results. The company stands ready to try its strategy against swine flu if needed. “The CDC is aware of what we are doing, and we have offered to help both the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC,” says Singhvi.
Other companies are taking an entirely novel approach and hoping to pick off influenza viruses in the nasal passages before they get deeper into the body and infect other cells. At NanoBio Corporation, a biotech company in Michigan, scientists are perfecting a topical nasal spray that would destroy any single-celled particles, like viruses, bacteria or fungi, on contact, while leaving our multicelled tissues intact. (Blood cells would be fair game for the destructive emulsion, however, so the solution could not be injected into the body.) In animal studies, says Dr. James Baker, the company’s chairman of the board, the spray protected 90% of mice from a lethal dose of influenza. The company is also testing a combination of the traditional flu vaccine with the emulsion, which, says Baker, provides a 50-times-greater immune response than the vaccine alone, even if using only one-sixth the usual vaccine dose. This technique is still too experimental to be helpful against the current swine flu outbreak, however.
So far, 10 states have confirmed cases of swine flu, including a death in Texas, but all 50 have already requested their portion of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) of antiviral medications, according to the CDC. (The SNS, maintained jointly by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, is the nation’s emergency medicine chest, containing critical drugs and medical equipment to be used in a public-health emergency.) Although the stockpiled antiviral drugs can treat existing cases of flu, a vaccine is the only way to protect people who are uninfected and halt further spread of the virus.
The CDC, the only agency that possesses the virus needed to make a vaccine, says it is still “looking very intently” at a swine flu vaccine, but it has not yet given the green light to scale up production. In the event that it does, either in response to the current outbreak or down the road when the next pig-to-people flu causes massive illness, they may have better ways than they did in ’76 to battle the bug.
CDC – Weekly Influenza Activity Estimates
Novel H1N1 Flu Situation Update
July 10, 2009, 11:00 AM ET>
Map: Weekly Influenza Activity Estimates Reported by State and Territorial Epidemiologists
(Activity levels indicate geographic spread of both seasonal and novel influenza A [H1N1] viruses)
(Posted July 10, 2009, 4:30 PM ET, for Week Ending July 4, 2009)
For Weekly Influenza Updates for your State
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