Faculty Bibliography

He cautioned: 'We don't have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is: Can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine?' An earlier human vaccine against A(H5N1) avian influenza virus was prepared after it first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997. That vaccine was never fully developed or used, and the strain has mutated since then. In interviews over recent days, [Anthony Fauci] has said that tests so far have shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year. The vaccine, developed with genetic engineering techniques, is intended to protect against infection, not to treat those who are sick

He cautioned: 'We don't have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is, `Can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine?' '

Influenza viruses are grown in chicken eggs, and the vaccine industry has difficulty obtaining enough of them to produce the standard influenza shots each year. That is among the reasons that the industry can currently produce only an estimated 450 million doses of standard influenza vaccine for the human strains, Dr. [Anthony S. Fauci] said. Dr. Kou Hsu-sung, the director general of Taiwan's Center for Disease Control, said the island was so concerned about the long-term risks of routine influenza outbreaks and an influenza pandemic that it plans to build its own human influenza vaccine factory. In years past, standard influenza vaccine has had to be discarded because too few people wanted it. In the case of the human avian influenza vaccine, said Dr. [William Schaffner], the Vanderbilt expert, ''how many people will show up and present their arms?''

He cautioned: 'We don't have all the vaccine we need to meet the possible demand. The critical issue now is. 'Can we make enough vaccine, given the well-known inability of the vaccine industry to make enough vaccine.'' An earlier human vaccine against A(H5N1) avian influenza virus was prepared after it first appeared in the world, in Hong Kong in 1997. That vaccine was never fully developed or used, and the strain has mutated since then. In interviews over recent days, [Anthony S. Fauci] has said that tests so far have shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year. The vaccine, developed with genetic engineering techniques, is intended to protect against infection, not to treat those who are sick

In recent interviews, [Anthony Fauci] has said that tests so far have shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year. The vaccine, developed with genetic engineering techniques, is intended to protect against infection, not to treat those who are sick

Tens of millions of birds have died from infection with the virus and culling to prevent the spread of the virus. About 100 people have been infected, and about 50 have died from this strain of the avian influenza virus, called A(H5N1). So far there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, but that is what health officials fear, because it could cause a pandemic. And that fear has driven the intense research to develop a vaccine. An earlier human vaccine against the A(H5N1) avian influenza virus was prepared after it first appeared in the world, in Hong Kong in 1997. That vaccine was never fully developed or used, and the strain has mutated since then. In interviews over recent days, Dr. [Anthony S. Fauci] has said that tests so far had shown that the new vaccine produced a strong immune response among the small group of healthy adults under age 65 who volunteered to receive it, although the doses needed were higher than in the standard influenza vaccine offered each year. The vaccine, developed with genetic engineering techniques, is intended to protect against infection, not to treat those who are sick

Because the A(H5N1) strain of avian flu is lethal for chickens and so could not be grown in eggs, Dr. [Robert G. Webster] had to use a technique known as reverse genetics to remove the gene that made the virus deadly. This altered virus was used by Sanofi-Pasteur, a French vaccine company, to produce the vaccine in chicken eggs. Dr. [Anthony S. Fauci] said he was encouraged by the findings because ''many other experimental vaccines have produced flat dose-response curves,'' meaning that the vaccines were ineffective because they did not stimulate the necessary immune response. An immunologically potent vaccine produces ''a good dose-response curve,'' he said, ''and unquestionably we got one with this vaccine.''

Only one, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, accepted, said Dr. Peter Piot, the director of United Nations AIDS, an organizer of the conference. Dr. Piot's United Nations group has stressed the need to put AIDS on the agendas of political meetings like those of the Group of 8. At the same time, Dr. Piot and others have tried to get leaders to attend meetings like this one to combine politics and public policy with AIDS science. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India is not coming because his administration is just starting and is involved in budget debates this week, Dr. Piot said. Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the Congress Party, which leads the governing coalition in India, and Mr. [Nelson Mandela] are expected to speak at the close of the conference

Falling short: In its first progress report, issued a day before the 15th International AIDS Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, today, the World Health Organization estimated that 440,000 people were being treated. That is about twice as many as in 2002, said Dr. Jim Kim, director of the agency's AIDS program. But the agency's goal had been to treat 60,000 more people by now. Only Botswana, Indonesia and Uganda have published such plans. Botswana is treating 18,000 people, with a goal of 30,000; Indonesia is treating 1,500, with a goal of 3,500; and Uganda is treating 20,000, with a goal of 55,000, said Melanie Zipperer, an agency spokeswoman

In its first progress report, issued a day before the 15th International AIDS Conference here today, the WHO estimated that 440,000 people were being treated. That is about twice as many as in 2002, said Dr. Jim Kim, director of the agency's AIDS program. But the agency's goal had been to treat 60,000 more people by now. [Lee Jong Wook] said that the U.N. agency could not let it fail because 'the collective response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the benchmark by which our generation will be judged.' Only Botswana, Indonesia and Uganda have published such plans. Botswana is treating 18,000 people, with a goal of 30,000; Indonesia is treating 1,500, with a goal of 3,500; and Uganda is treating 20,000, with a goal of 55,000, said Melanie Zipperer, an agency spokeswoman. -->