# 2207
Japan is facing a dilemma.
They have 20 million doses of pre-pandemic vaccine, based on an early clade of the H5N1 virus, that will expire next year.
If they don't use them soon, they will lose them.
Even if this vaccine doesn't prove to be a good match for the next pandemic, it is hoped that recipients may find that their immune systems partially primed to fight an H5 infection, and would only need a booster shot when a pandemic erupted.
I explored this theory last month in a blog entitled Pre-Pandemic Vaccine Strategies, when new research, published in the August edition of The Journal of Infectious Diseases , came out suggesting that early administration of a prepandemic vaccine can prime the recipient for a later vaccine.
Therefore Japan will began a test inoculation of about 6000 medical workers with this vaccine, hoping to prove that it is both safe and effective.
This will be the first large scale administration of a pre-pandemic vaccine by any nation.
If successful, Japan may elect to inoculate high-risk workers next Spring with the remainder of their expiring stockpile.
Other countries, including the United States, will be watching this trial closely, as they also have prepandemic vaccines in storage that will expire over the next year or two.
Pre-pandemic flu vaccine test starts
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
2008/8/6
About 70 doctors, nurses and pharmacists Monday received vaccine shots to protect against new strains of avian influenza at a Tokyo hospital, health ministry officials said.
It was the first phase of a large-scale clinical trial--the world's first to test the effectiveness of pre-pandemic immunization to prevent the spread of a new influenza virus.
A total of 6,400 doctors and quarantine officers will receive trial immunizations with a vaccine made from a strain of virulent H5N1 influenza found in Indonesia and China.(IHT/Asahi: August 6,2008)
