GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS

First the good news: The US government has bought 162 million dollars worth of vaccine for the Avian Flu. This vaccine is based on the Vietnam Strain of the virus, and has recently been tested on 400 volunteers.

And it is with a great sense of relief I can report that the vaccine appears to be safe. No major side effects were observed.

Now the bad news: The vaccine doesn't work very well. Not well at all.

Only those test subjects who received 2 shots, 1 month apart, and at the highest dose, achieved any level of immunity. And of those, only a little more than half developed protective antibodies.

The hope was that this vaccine would innoculate 20 million people. At the levels indicated by these tests, they would produce only 4 million effective doses. And of those, only half would work.

So, dissapointment reigns in the vaccine world today. We obviously have a long way to go.

BUT, news of a chinese scientist making a serum from infected horses that confered immunity to mice has made the news. Surely, this could save our collective bacon?

Not likely. Horse serum is fraught with problems, not the least of which is the high incidence of serum sickness that it can induce. It is unlikely that any western nation would approve its use, and besides, producing serum in quantity from horses would be very difficult.

Serums, by the way, only confer short-term immunity. A couple of weeks protection. They could be used for front line personnel who are directly in contact with the virus, but once again, are not a cure.

There are still avenues to persue; adjuvants, antivirals, and new vaccine techinques. By no means is a preventative out of our reach.

We just need time, money, and more time.