News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – A pharmaceutical company is reporting good results in the first clinical trial of an H5N1 avian influenza vaccine that uses a whole, killed H5N1 virus grown in cell culture—a combination of techniques that entails some risk but may boost immune response and shorten production time.

Maryn McKennaContributing Writer

(CIDRAP News) – This in-depth article investigates the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. Its seven parts put advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

Editor's note: This is the bibliography to a seven-part series launched October 25, 2007, investigating the prospects for development of vaccines to head off the threat of an influenza pandemic posed by the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The series puts advances in vaccine technology in perspective by illuminating the formidable barriers to producing an effective and widely usable vaccine in a short time frame.

(CIDRAP News) – Low doses of a cell-based avian flu vaccine triggered a good immune response to the H5N1 avian influenza virus, according to preliminary results of a clinical trial by Baxter International of Deerfield, Ill., maker of the vaccine.