New NDV-H5NX avian influenza vaccine has potential for mass vaccination of poultry

Date:January 7, 2016

Source:Kansas State University

A team of researchers at Kansas State University, in collaboration with Garcia-Sastre of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has developed a vaccine that protects poultry from multiple strains of avian influenza found in the U.S., including H5N1, H5N2 and H5N8. The vaccine has the potential to be administered through water or into embryonated eggs, making it easier for poultry producers to vaccinate flocks.

The vaccine, called NDV-H5Nx, protects chickens and likely other poultry against the three recently introduced U.S. avian influenza strains H5N1, H5N2 and H5N8, as well as against Newcastle disease virus -- a virus that naturally affects poultry. Avian influenza killed millions of chickens and turkeys in the U.S. in spring and summer 2015, leading to billions in lost revenue for the U.S. poultry industry.

The NDV-H5Nx vaccine also has the potential to be administered to millions of birds at a time through water, said Jürgen Richt, Regents distinguished professor of veterinary medicine, director of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases at Kansas State University and one of the researchers involved in the discovery.

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Bird Flu Vaccine Successful on First Human Test

Scientists have successfully tested a bird flu vaccine on humans for the first time. This, coupled with the quick vaccine production process, is a milestone in fighting the deadly virus.

The mortality rate of the bird flu is around 30 percent of the infected patients. China had recorded 45 fatalities and 137 infections of the bird flu H7N9 since October. According to the World Health Organization, the H7N9 doesn’t show any signs of human transmission but this does not mean that the virus cannot go through changes in its inherent qualities to allow infection through human contact.

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FDA delays approval of GSK bird flu vaccine

LONDON (Reuters) - Regulators have delayed approval of an H5N1 bird flu vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline, designed to be used in a pandemic.

A spokesman for Britain's biggest drugmaker said the delay was not related to recent controversy over links between a similar flu vaccine made by the company and narcolepsy.

Rather, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decided it needed more time to assess the product "due to an administrative matter that has recently been rectified", GSK said in a statement on Monday.

"GSK and the FDA are actively working together to complete the review in a timely manner," it added.

There is growing evidence of a link between GSK's earlier H1N1 flu vaccine, Pandemrix, and an increase in narcolepsy cases among children who received it in Europe - a fact which has raised questions as to whether the FDA should approve the similar H5N1 product.

Both vaccines contain AS03, a new adjuvant, or booster, that turbo-charges the body's immune response to a vaccine.

A 14-member panel of advisers to the FDA voted unanimously in November to recommend the H5N1 vaccine to protect against bird flu. The panel considered early studies from Europe showing an increase in the number of narcolepsy cases but concluded that the potential benefit of the vaccine outweighed the risk.

Since then, however, new data, including study results from Britain, suggest the scale and strength of the narcolepsy link to Pandemrix during the 2009-10 H1N1 swine flu pandemic could be greater than first thought.

Officials at the FDA were not immediately available to comment on the case.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing Keith Weir)

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