ProCPR Blog

This could have gone much much worse, but here’s the scenario:  A scientist was doing work with lab mice and the ebola virus.  A momentary lapse in safety precautions led to her accidently pricking her finger with the needle.  The scientist, an unidentified 45-year-old German woman, had to act fast.

Her colleagues, within hours, started a teleconference with scientists in Canada to map out a plan to save her life.  The plan was to use an experimental vaccine that had never been used on humans before, in an attempt to destroy the virus.  The scientist had just become the guinea pig.

Within 24 hours, the vaccine was shipped out from Canada to Germany where, nearly 40 hours later, it was administered.

The accident occurred on March 12th, and if she is still healthy as of April 2nd, she can consider herself to be safe.  So far, so good.  However, we cannot be certain that she had actually infected herself with the Ebola virus.  If she doesn’t become infected, scientists won’t know if it was the vaccine or a near-miss.

-via MSNBC

Researchers are working on a new way to target the flu virus -- one that could one day eliminate the need for a yearly flu shot, and may even provide a defense against deadly bird flu. (AP)

Scientists have discovered a new antibody that works against the Flu, inactivating the virus when it comes into contact with it.  It could lead to medications to fight the flu as well as the creation of a vaccine that would not have to be repeated year after year.  The vaccine would be able to target a wide range of various flu strains.

“We identified new human antibodies that inactivate influenza, not just bird flu, but any of the seasonal influenza viruses that affect us in the winter,” said researcher Dr. Wayne A. Marasco, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

(more…)

A new finding suggests that a half-dose flu shot is sufficient enough to trigger an immune response in healthy adults under age 50 who have had prior flu vaccinations.

A study that involved healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 64, who’d been vaccinated within the past one to three years was conducted, recently.  In that study, they gave a full-dose flu shot to 554 participants and a half-dose shot to 556 participants.  (Why they couldn’t have done 555 each, I don’t know.)

Blood samples were taken before and three weeks after the vaccination and tested for antibodies.  The volunteers also reported any flu-like symptoms they had experienced.

“Antibody responses to intramuscular half-dose trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine in healthy, previously immunized adults were not substantially inferior to the full-dose vaccine, particularly for ages 18 to 49 years,” the researchers wrote.

The study is published in the December 8th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

-via US News
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about preventing seasonal flu.

According to two studies, a vaccine against the parasitic disease Malaria, is entering into its’ third and final phase of clinical trials, after two successful trials.

Malaria kills nearly 1 million people each year and sickens about 2 million others, according to estimates from the World Health Organization. Most of the deaths are among children younger than 5 in sub-Saharan Africa, the population that the vaccine targets.

The vaccine RTS,S was developed by Belgium-basedGlaxoSmithKline Biologicals with support from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, a global nonprofit consortium that works with pharmaceutical companies.

In the first study, conducted in Kenya and Tanzania, 894 children ages 5 months to 17 months were inoculated either with the three-dose experimental malaria vaccine or a rabies vaccine as a control group. In the eight-month follow-up period, researchers found that children receiving RTS,S had 53% fewer diagnosed cases of malaria — 38 episodes compared with 86 among recipients of the control rabies vaccine.

In the other study, conducted in Tanzania, the vaccine was given to 340 infants at 8, 12 and 16 weeks old, along with vaccines against polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough) and Haemophilus influenzae B without lessening the safety or effectiveness of the vaccines. The ability to administer the vaccine as part of already established immunization programs is important for countries where health workers, clinics and roads are in such shortage that delivering a drug can be almost as challenging as developing one, researchers say.

Again, the trial was randomized and double-blinded — considered the scientific gold standard — with half the infants receiving the malaria vaccine and the other half receiving a hepatitis B vaccine as a control. Although it was not the main object of the study, the researchers found that infants who received the malaria vaccine had 65% fewer infections, as measured by the presence of parasite in the bloodstream, over a six-month period than those who did not, confirming the findings from an earlier, smaller study.

If all goes as planned, the final trials will end in 2011, and should then be prepared for licensure at that time.  It would then be available for use in 2012.

Dr. Carlos C. “Kent” Campbell called the findings impressive.  He led the malaria program at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for almost 20 years and was not involved in the research.

-via L.A. Times