"Vaccine a Red Herring... insufficient"

02/08/2006 -- 11:34(GMT+7)
Single vaccine against bird flu insufficient, say US scientists
      

Hong Kong (VNA) - Scientists in the United States have suggested that a
single vaccine against the deadly H5N1 virus would be insufficient as they
have discovered four different genotypes of the lethal bird flu virus.

The scientists have studied 13,115 waste specimens from migratory birds
in Hong Kong and Poyang Lake in China's southeastern province of
Jiangxi, the South China Morning Post reported on February 7. The paper
said that the scientists found four genotypes of the H5N1 virus detected
from a goose virus in 1996 in the southern province of Guangdong.

Their report, published on February 7 in the US Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, concludes that ''the development of a
single vaccine is a red herring and bird flu must be controlled at its
source,'' according to the daily.--Enditem


http://www.vnanet.vn/NewsA.asp?
LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=34&NEWS_ID=185321] http://
www.vnanet.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=34&
NEWS_ID=185321
* Controlling it at it's source is next to impossible at the current moment.

Edited by Rick

With the recent stories, I am now starting to get confused about what's going on with the different scenerios that are popping up. It sounds like with all of this activity, it's turning into mayhem. And it makes me think that a pandemic truly is inevitable.

Keep on prepping....

Hmmmmmm!  Maybe Koolstever was right.  Kill all the birds.  The Chickadee Option.  In any event I think a new 'executive order' is needed.  "All birds grounded until further notice."  But - I think that wouldn't fly with the world at large so a coalition would have to be formed at the UN - then referred to the Security Council - and then get veoted by China, Russia, France, and Germany - and by the time all this takes place - the BF is upon us.  Once again - too llittle - too late - and Bush takes the heat.

Rick - really appreciate all your postings.  Seems we are entering an ever faster bubbling situation.

I still wonder if eating 'well cooked' infected poultry would not transfer some immunity via transfer of antibodies?  Maybe everyone should eat a sick chicken to stay well.   Just a thought but nowhere have I yet found a difinitive answer to this question.  Does not 'well cooked' beef transfer mad cow disease.  Why not H5N1 via chicken?  I realize one is protein based and the other viral - but transfer does take place.  Could tainted chicken meat hold the key? - or at least one number to a combination.

The cooks seem to die (it used to be they only got fat) but the diners seem to llive.  Do they also now have some slight immunity to BF?

Edited by mightymouse

MM,
I think that someone could probably answer this question alot better than I could, but here's my answer:  Antibodies are proteins and are denatured (their structure is distorted) when they are exposed to high temperatures, like during cooking. Since they are distorted in shape, they can't offer the same protection that  intact antibodies would (they can't bind to the antigen--bird flu virus, in this case--in the same way, and therefore wouldn't be able to assist the immune system in destruction of the virus ).
Mad cow disease is a prion disease (an abnormally folded protein) and prions, unfortunately, are not easily destroyed by heat or other typical methods of disinfection.  (Perhaps their abnormal configuration or structure is what makes them indestructable to heat  but I don't know for sure.)

Maybe someone can explain this in better detail and that would help further.
Millie

Edited by jackson

Bear in mind that the vaccine was never going to be a perfect option, even before this latest news.

For example the current seasonal influenza vaccines have a similar problem, they have to predict in advance what the dominant strains will be for the forthcoming season, and they get it wrong sometimes (eg this season the Influenza B in the vaccine isnt a great match for the most prevalent type of Influenza B thats infecting humans so far this winter).

The most sensible thing to do is have vaccine of all the various types stockpiled, but this exascerbates the vaccine supply problems we face. We are still mostly using quite old technology to make vaccine, capacity is limited by factors such as how many chicken eggs you can get hold of. H5N1 probably makes this issue worse because of its potential to kill chickens, I have read that this can complicate sucessful vaccine production due to the aforementioned use of chicken eggs in the process. But I dont understand this enough to go into more detail.

Anyway I read stuff ages ago about how they knew it may be hard to get the right strain into the vaccine, and so vaccine likely to be very limited for at least the first wave of the pandemic.

Am I right to say the best guess for planning purposes right now is to go for the strain thats made it from the lake in China to Turkey & beyond?


Edited by elbows