Avian Flu Moves Closer to Europe.

Good news and bad news on the avian flu front.

The disease is confirmed in Turkey and a suspected outbreak in Romania turns out not to be one. But the truly important news? That our Lords and Masters in the British Government are not taking this seriously. No, not the movement of the disease in birds across the world, that’s not the important point. For the change to occur which would lead to human to human transmission is most likely to happen where birds and humans live packed close together in enforced proximity, which means that any outbreak is most likely to start in SE Asia, however many birds around the world get it.

No, the important thing is to be working on vaccines.

The Times has learnt that urgent studies into improved vaccines are being held up because the Government is stalling over financial support. The Department of Health has yet to respond to detailed proposals submitted by British virologists almost eight months ago, even though the work is widely acknowledged to be desperately needed to create vaccines.

Flu experts said that the delay was unacceptable when vaccine development should be every country’s priority for health research.

“The length of time this has taken is inordinately long,” said Sir John Skehel, director of the National Institute for Medical Research and vice-president of the Academy of Medical Sciences. “There’s no doubt that the trial in H5 is an emergency matter and should be done as quickly as possible, given refereeing safeguards to ensure quality. It really is the number one priority across the board. That should be it.”
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A candidate vaccine has been developed by Sanofi Pasteur, a French pharmaceutical company, but trials in the US have shown that it confers immunity only at very high doses, which must be four times stronger than conventional flu shots.

Without substantial improvements to the vaccine, it will be possible to cover only about 75 million of the world’s population of 6 billion people, even if every conventional factory is switched to make the new jab.

The British research is important as it aims to reduce the amount of vaccine needed for protection, and thus expand the numbers immunised. The team, led by John Wood, of the National Institute of Biological Standards and Control in Hertfordshire, and Karl Nicholson, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Leicester, plans to test booster chemicals known as adjuvants that enhance the immmune system’s response to the vaccine.

While the US National Institutes of Health is investing heavily in H5N1 vaccine research, it has yet to investigate adjuvants, and the British group is among the most experienced in the world in the field.

A formal proposal was sent to the Department of Health in the early spring, but the researchers are still waiting for a response. Professor Nicholson said: “I’m very concerned indeed. I’m extremely sorry to say that in the UK, though we have made vaccine strains, the Department of Health hasn’t actioned critically important work that needs to be done.”

Dr Wood said that the systems for funding medical research in Britain and the European Union were not equipped to handle proposals that needed quick decisions.

Even if money were made available immediately, the hold-up meant that the work would not be able to begin until next year. The rigid timetables of vaccine manufacturers, which are now producing standard flu jabs for the southern hemisphere winter, mean that no facilities will be available to make batches for trials until the spring. An opportunity was missed during the summer because of the funding delays. David Salisbury, principal medical officer of the Department of Health’s communicable disease branch, defended the delay, saying it would be wrong to commission the work without proper consideration.

So, let’s see, we’ve had a Nobel Prize Winner in Medicine telling us that an outbreak of flu, a pandemic, is inevitable. We have a candidate in the current avian flu. And our public health authorities (one of the few justifications for Government that even the most rigid libertarian would support) do nothing for 8 months. Wonderful, what a stunning justification of the current system.

Update. Welcome Instapundit readers. Please do have a look around. In a gross piece of commercialism may I point out to you that there is a book coming out next month? Details are here and it can be ordered via amazon.co.uk (not from .com) and the link at the top right.

Essentially it has lots of good bits (the best pieces of British and Irish blogging over the past year) and also some bits from me. Which may or may not be so good. But it isn’t a book about blogging, it’s a collection of some of the best pieces of it, an anthology. A great guide if you want to know what we get up to on this side of the pond.

You can also do something about avian flu in the UK by signing this at pledgebank.