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Mini dose vaccine the answer to a possible flu pandemic?
[mis à jour le 19 September 2007 à 09h12]
Good news in the fight against the H5N1 flu virus. Sanofi Aventis has announced the development of a candidate vaccine which “showed a high immune response at low dose”. Once perfected this vaccine could enable a considerable increase in the vaccine stock available in the event of a flu pandemic.
The new vaccine is the product of research conducted by Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of the Sanofi Aventis group. It was produced from inactivated H5N1 virus and “contains a new adjuvant aimed at stimulating the immune system to increase the response to the vaccine”, explains the manufacturer in a press release.
Tested on a group of 266 adult volunteers in good health, the lowest dose candidate vaccine – with only 1,9µg (micrograms) of flu antigen – produced an immune response in over 70% of the group. “These unprecedented results make economical dosing possible” and that is extremely valuable. They should in fact enable production of thousands of millions of additional vaccine doses in anticipation of a flu pandemic. The only snag is that at present nobody can be sure if the next pandemic virus will in fact be H5N1…
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