October 24, 2005

 

Hungary's bird flu vaccine test a success
 

 

Hungary will inform the WHO of its success in developing a vaccine against the lethal H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus Monday, Hungarian health officials said Friday.

 

The vaccine has been developed to prevent the passing of the H5N1 bird flu virus to humans and it could also protect birds from catching the virus, the authorities said.

 

"The vaccine ensures the immunological effect... . We've even surpassed the WTO's requirements," Istvan Jankovics, a leading virologist at the National Epidemiology Center in Budapest, told the press.

 

"This vaccine produced four times more antibodies than required by the WHO for the normal flu vaccine," Jankovics said. Furthermore, the vaccine's effectiveness is also higher than required by the WTO-over 80 percent of those vaccinated produced a positive reaction as against the WTO's 70 percent requirement, Jankovics said. In addition, no side effect has been detected.

 

Initial results Wednesday showed that antibodies to the H5N1 strain had appeared in the blood of the first three volunteers who underwent the human testing at the end of September after successful animal tests.

 

"The new results confirm the preliminary results," Hungarian Health Minister Jeno Racz said.

 

In all, 150 people received the vaccine. The second round of blood tests are available from 15 of those inoculated. The authorities do not expect the outcome of the remaining tests to change the results.

 

The vaccine, which is the result of the concerted development work of 100 Hungarian scientists since April, is based on a virus sample from the WHO. The WHO used the H5N1 virus located in Vietnam for its sample.

 

The H5N1 strain has caused the death of 61 people out of the 118 that caught the virus in south-east Asia.

 

The H5N1 strain is feared for its potential to develop into a human-to-human virus, possibly causing a pandemic. The Hungarian vaccine would help fight such a virus, should it ever develop.

 

"Developing this process will save us six months in case of a mutation," Jankovics added.

 

Hungarian human vaccine manufacturer Omninvest Kft., which took part in the development of the vaccine, will make between 20,000 and 60,000 dosages of the vaccine by the end of this year. Industrial production could start in early 2006, after validation, said Laszlo Bujdoso, Hungary's chief medical officer.

 

The health minister added that over the past few days numerous multinational drug makers and financial investors have expressed interest in manufacturing or investing in the vaccine, as did governments from Europe, Asia and the US in purchasing the product. Racz declined to name the drug makers or financial investors.

 

No specific talks are under way, Racz added. Hungary will start such talks when the possible buyers of the vaccine specify the amounts they need and when the international validation and registration is available.

 

Hungary currently has the capacity to manufacture 500,000 dosages of the vaccine a week.

 

The Hungarian government will also need to decide in the coming weeks whether it wants to sell the vaccine as a product or patent it, Racz added.

 

"It's a question what the right thing is, to boost the production capacity or to sell the patent, which would yield less profit but a different productivity," Racz said.