Pour être plus précis, ce virus est pour l'instant un virus à transmission inter-animal et le risque c'est une mutation de ce Virus qui lui permette de franchir la barrière d'espèces. Qu'il devienne donc transmissible de l'Homme à l'Homme.
Il y a actuellement des vaccins contre le Virus H5N1, tel qu'on le connait.
L'objectif des scientifiques est donc de trouver une solution contre cette éventuelle souche virale transmissible de l'Homme à l'Homme.
Cette semaine, vient d'être publié dans le New England Journal of Medicine, le plus prestigieux et le plus reconnu (et de loin) des journaux médicaux, le résultat d'une étude sur un vaccin qui neutralise non seulement le H5N1 classique, mais aussi différentes variations de ce virus.
Je ne sais pas si les médias "généralistes" vont en parler, mais ce resultat me semble TRES important. Cela signifie à mon avis, que la crainte de millions de morts est quasiment à écarter.
Mode Troll On/
Dans les pays occidentaux en tout cas
Mode Troll Off/
N Engl J Med. 2008 Jun 12;358(24):2573-84.
A clinical trial of a whole-virus H5N1 vaccine derived from cell culture.
Ehrlich HJ, Muller M, Oh HM, Tambyah PA, Joukhadar C, Montomoli E, Fisher D, Berezuk G, Fritsch S, Low-Baselli A, Vartian N, Bobrovsky R, Pavlova BG, Pollabauer EM, Kistner O, Barrett PN; Baxter H5N1 Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Clinical Study Team.
Department of Global Research and Development, Baxter BioScience, Vienna, Austria.
BACKGROUND: Widespread infections of avian species with avian influenza H5N1 virus and its limited spread to humans suggest that the virus has the potential to cause a human influenza pandemic. An urgent need exists for an H5N1 vaccine that is effective against divergent strains of H5N1 virus. METHODS: In a randomized, dose-escalation, phase 1 and 2 study involving six subgroups, we investigated the safety of an H5N1 whole-virus vaccine produced on Vero cell cultures and determined its ability to induce antibodies capable of neutralizing various H5N1 strains. In two visits 21 days apart, 275 volunteers between the ages of 18 and 45 years received two doses of vaccine that each contained 3.75 microg, 7.5 microg, 15 microg, or 30 microg of hemagglutinin antigen with alum adjuvant or 7.5 microg or 15 microg of hemagglutinin antigen without adjuvant. Serologic analysis was performed at baseline and on days 21 and 42. RESULTS: The vaccine induced a neutralizing immune response not only against the clade 1 (A/Vietnam/1203/2004) virus strain but also against the clade 2 and 3 strains. The use of adjuvants did not improve the antibody response. Maximum responses to the vaccine strain were obtained with formulations containing 7.5 microg and 15 microg of hemagglutinin antigen without adjuvant. Mild pain at the injection site (in 9 to 27% of subjects) and headache (in 6 to 31% of subjects) were the most common adverse events identified for all vaccine formulations. CONCLUSIONS: A two-dose vaccine regimen of either 7.5 microg or 15 microg of hemagglutinin antigen without adjuvant induced neutralizing antibodies against diverse H5N1 virus strains in a high percentage of subjects, suggesting that this may be a useful H5N1 vaccine. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00349141.) 2008 Massachusetts Medical Society
