Hope for H5N1 Pandemic Flu Virus

Posted by Christine Buske Dec 3, 2006

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK, London) has been developing a vaccine in response to the H5N1 bird flu pandemic scare. Finally, there is some good news for those of us fearing a repetition of the devastation caused by the Spanish flu. JP Garnier, GlaxoSmithKline’s CEO stated in a company release that “All being well, we expect to make regulatory filings for the vaccine in the coming months”. This means GSK came across some very good findings: the H5N1 pandemic flu vaccine achieved a high immune response at a very low dose of the antigen, the response met and exceeded the minimum required seroprotective immune response in 80% of the subjects given the dose.

These levels of protection have not been achieved yet by any other vaccine, and GSK will continue to development on it, as well as asses whether the vaccine offers cross protection against other bird flu variants.