Two Of 24 Influenza Volunteers React To Locally-made Vaccine

[churchill]

BANGKOK, Dec 20 (TNA) -- Two of 24 Thai volunteers to use the locally-made nasal spray vaccine in trials on the Influenza A (H1N1), conducted for the first time in the kingdom, have reacted to the vaccine, Dr. Vichai Chokewiwat, chairman of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO), on Sunday.

The human trials began Friday, and two of the overall 24 volunteers have already reacted by showing that they suffered from sore throat and swollen noses, said Dr. Vichai. Both had nasal discharges but no fever which showed that their bodies reacted to the vaccine.

In order to ascertain that the volunteers’ bodies are immune to the deadly disease, doctors will have to wait for blood test results which will be obtained three weeks after the vaccine was administered, he said.

Dr. Vichai said medical personnel on Monday will check inside the noses of all 24 volunteers, clean them with water and then conduct tests on the water whether it contained any virus from the vaccine. If the virus is found, then it could be proven that the trials were successful.

The morale of the 24 volunteers, now staying at Mahidol University’s Faculty of Tropical Medicine, is high and they will be allowed to return home one week after the trial, he said.

Health officials will follow up the volunteers’ health and results of the vaccines for another three weeks before they are given second doses of vaccine.

Evaluations of the test will be done one month after the volunteers are given second doses it will then be decided whether the next step of the vaccine trial will be conducted using the second batch of 400 volunteers. Dr. Vichai has said that if the nasal spray vaccine trial has no obstacle, the vaccines will be ready for use in February at the soonest.

The clinical tests are designed to evaluate the safety of the nasal spray vaccines manufactured by the GPO as well as to check the level of immunity against the virus.

According to the vaccination programme, the 12 volunteers have been given a low concentration of the vaccine -- 6.5 log (the amount of the virus per cubic centimetre) -- while others have received higher concentration of 7-7.5

-- TNA 20/12/09

[newsfooter][/newsfooter]

http://enews.mcot.net/view.php?id=13354

[londonthai]

good news, that thai are trying to get their own vaccine, as the government has ordered only 2mln doses from abroad (which is certainly not enough).

"the deadly disease" is a huge exageration, as most of us has already had h1n1 visus (just without any symptoms), and only a very few died so far.

[Credo]

So having a swollen nose and a sore throat is good news?

[londonthai]

it shows, that the body reacts to the vaccine and will be making antibodies, preventing from a serious infection

[infernalman7]

Good news indeed!

[anon467367354]

the problem with the nasal spray is it makes the person infectious to others for up to 2 weeks or more. Actually more dangerous than getting the flu in terms of how easy it is to spread it around.

[animatic]

8.33 reaction is not very impressive, if it is the measure of 'actually working',

If it is 'over reactive symptoms', then it is a high percentage and not such a good thing.

Hard to say which they mean is the better instance.

Add to that the contagion window it opens up for others.

They cure that spreads the cause... hmmm...

[khundon]

Good news indeed!

Sorry, wrong thread

Removed post, I put my answer in wrong thread.

Edited December 20, 2009 by khundon

[geriatrickid]

good news, that thai are trying to get their own vaccine, as the government has ordered only 2mln doses from abroad (which is certainly not enough).

"the deadly disease" is a huge exageration, as most of us has already had h1n1 visus (just without any symptoms), and only a very few died so far.

Would you please explain your 2nd statement? I would appreciate if you provide the factual data to support such a conclusion. If you have information that health authorities do not have please share. Please read the weekly updates from WHO. The most recent one includes the following answer to a journalist's question;

Dr Fukuda: My view is that right now we have over 10,000 deaths in which the deaths are associated by laboratory testing with the new pandemic virus. Now this is likely to be a quitean underestimate of the actual number of deaths which have occurred out there. So the reason why this has been confusing is that with the current pandemic situation, the numbers of people that have been reported to die from influenza are people in whom our direct testing has been done so someone has taken a sample and sent it to a laboratory. This is usually not how we count deaths from influenza. If we look at the estimate for influenza deaths each year, these are really developed by looking at the death records in countries and applying models to them and then estimating how many of them are due to influenza. I think that this will take about a year, perhaps a little bit longer, after the pandemic ends, to actually makethe same kind of estimates for this pandemic. And when we do that I think that we will find that in fact the number of deaths worldwide is much higher than the 10,000. To give you an example of this, if we look at the United States one of their surveillance systems is to look at the number of deaths going on right now above an estimated baseline of deaths. What they would expect to see if the pandemic was not going on. So for the 10th straight week they are reporting that the numbers of deaths are above the estimated regular number of deaths. I think that at some point when this kind of information are counted up through the usual techniques that we do then we will see that the overall number of deaths is quite a bit higher than the numbers we are talking about now.

The next wave is expected in January/February. The spread of this virus is following the mathematical model, and there really have been no surprises. Success should not be seen as failure.

I also wish to draw your attention to the following statement at the same results news conference;

Based on this we see that activity or infections continue at quite high levels, in several different counties. For example, we see that activity continues to be at high levels in parts of Europe such as France and Switzerland, in the Czech Republic. We see that activity continues to be high in parts of central Asia such as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and we also see that activity continues to be high in some very large countries such as Russia.

Because you are not seeing evidence of the infections in your community does not mean that other communities are not afflicted.

[Valentine]

It is disturbing to think that by taking the nasal spray vaccine then those people will be able to spread the flu afterwards. I hope this is not the case.

There are many who say this flu is no worse than normal flu outbreaks but the evidence suggests if not treated in time it can kill quite quickly & therein lies the danger especially if supplies of medication become scarce.

[Scott]

I am curious about a statement made by a previous poster. Are people infectious during this window of time when the body's immune system is mounting a defense against the virus?

Is the viral base used in the nasal spray altered in such a way to make it either non-infectious, or if so, less harmful or less virulent than the 'natural' flu?

[Nienke]

Read this and make up your own mind. The answer to your questions is in the last part of the article.

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices...rs-of-flu-shots

I strongly wonder how far we can trust the so-called flu experts and some government officials (world-wide), especially after reading news reports such as:

British Medical Journal questions the efficacy of tamiflu against swine flu - or any flu.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_sh...or-any-flu.html

The French Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, will have to attend a hearing at the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris on January the 4th at 9am. The minister has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for more than 10 years, and has played a key role in the planning and executing the mass swine flu vaccination campaign in France. She sanctioned a secret contract with pharmaceutical companies, giving them blanket immunity from any legal action in the event of their untested jabs causing death or damage.

http://www.webtelelibre.levillage.org/inde...6&Itemid=40

http://www.voltairenet.org/article163240.html

Osterhaus’s credentials and expertise in his field were not in question. What is in question, according to a short report published by the journal Science, are his links to corporate interests that stand to potentially profit from the swine flu pandemic. Science carried the following brief note in its October 16, 2009 issue about Osterhaus:

"For the past 6 months, one could barely switch on the television in the Netherlands without seeing the face of famed virus hunter Albert Osterhaus talking about the swine flu pandemic. Or so it has seemed. Osterhaus, who runs an internationally renowned virus lab at Erasmus Medical Center, has been Mr. Flu. But last week, his reputation took a nosedive after it was alleged that he has been stoking pandemic fears to promote his own business interests in vaccine development. As Science went to press, the Dutch House of Representatives had even slated an emergency debate about the matter." [1]

Correspondence with WHO on conflict of interest with Danish 'flu-expert'

http://www.rokotusinfo.fi/yhd/kirjeenvaihtoa/who_0912_html

Why does the European Union start questioning the credibility of the WHO? The Polish government, many doctors, immunologists, epidemiologists and other scientists are doing that for months already.

Chairman of the European parliament’s health committee and former SPD member of parliament, Wolfgang Wodarg, initiated an inquiry on the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign, focusing especially on extent of the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on WHO. The motion was passed unanimously by his colleagues in the European parliament‘s health committee:

http://www.zeit.de/politik/2009-12/schweinegrippe-europa (in German)

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/interna...;art123,2976433 (in German) For translation in English, you can use: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/

Edited December 21, 2009 by Nienke

[Sheryl]

I am curious about a statement made by a previous poster. Are people infectious during this window of time when the body's immune system is mounting a defense against the virus?

Is the viral base used in the nasal spray altered in such a way to make it either non-infectious, or if so, less harmful or less virulent than the 'natural' flu?

It is an attentuated vaccine, which means it has been weakened to the point that it does not cause illness.

[Scott]

Thanks Sheryl, but I am wondering whether the 'weakness' is genetic and therefore unlikely to be transmitted. Why are the people getting a sore throat and red noses? Is this natural.

I ask in part because years ago, my kids got a nasal vaccination, although I can't remember what it was for, and they had absolutely no symptoms of anything.