Leavitt: Second Bird Flu Vaccine in Works

Associated Press | March 6, 2006
By MIKE STOBBE

ATLANTA (AP) - Federal health officials announced plans Monday for a second vaccine to protect people from bird flu because the virus that is spreading among birds in Asia and Europe has changed significantly in the past year.

The government has several million doses of an earlier bird flu vaccine, but it was based on a sample of virus taken from Vietnam in 2004. The germ is believed to have mutated enough since then that the form now circulating in Africa and Europe may be different, health officials said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Monday he had authorized the National Institutes of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin working on a second vaccine for humans.

"In order to be prepared, we need to continue to develop new vaccines," Leavitt said at an immunization conference in Atlanta.

The World Health Organization has reported at least 174 human cases of bird flu, including 94 deaths since 2003.

So far, most if not all of the human victims were in very close contact with infected birds, but health officials worry that as bird flu spreads, it could mutate into a strain that easily passes among people.

Dr. Margaret Chan, who is spearheading the WHO efforts against the virus, said it poses a greater challenge to the world than any previous infectious disease. Since February, the virus has spread to birds in 17 new countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Chan said.

Poland on Monday confirmed its first outbreak of the disease, saying laboratory tests found that two wild swans died of the lethal strain.

Several cats have also tested positive for the deadly strain in Austria's first reported case of the disease spreading to an animal other than a bird, officials in that country said Monday.

The WHO describes bird flu as unprecedented in its scope as an animal disease, saying it is costing the world's agriculture industry more than $10 billion and affecting the livelihoods of 300 million farmers.

Last modified March 6, 2006