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The H5N1 “seed strain” (the strain used to produce the trial vaccines) was developed by researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, using a technique known as reverse genetics. NIAID provided this H5N1 reference virus to sanofi pasteur and Chiron in spring 2004 for vaccine production.

When will NIAID begin testing the H5N1 vaccines, and where will clinical trials be held?

The first clinical trial is recruiting volunteers and began start vaccinations on April 4, 2005. This first trial will investigate the sanofi pasteur vaccine’s safety and ability to generate an immune response (immunogenicity). The trial will take place at three NIAID-sponsored Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs).

I think it may be helpful for many of you to understand that although this vaccine is not necessarily 100% accurate, neither are the ones being given every year for the flu.

Additional points that may be helpful - this vaccine - for the current avian flu - is not really experimental as much as it is in clinical trials. There is a big difference between the two. And finally I think it takes some pretty large antigenic changes to make a vaccine completely ineffective. This one looks very good to me. Give me 50% crossover and I believe the survival rate will skyrocket for this bug.