Science
(2009-07-22)
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If you live in the Seattle area, you'll have the chance to be first in line for a vaccine against the swine flu. The only catch is, you won't know how well it works.
There's a mad scramble going on to create a vaccine in time for the winter flu season, when the H1N1 swine flu is expected to spread rapidly again. A potential vaccine is being grown now, and then it has to be tested to make sure it's safe. A hundred or more volunteers will be recruited in Seattle, starting in August.
Vaccine researcher Lisa Jackson, of Group Health's Center for Health Studies, says volunteers will get two injections, 21 days apart, and then blood tests for three more weeks. The blood tests will show if the vaccine stimulates a good immune response.
Group Health is one of eight centers around the country running tests of the new vaccine. The trials should start the second or third week of August, via Group Health, the University of Washington, and Seattle Children's Research Institute.
The vaccine is made the same way as a regular seasonal flu vaccine - by growing it in chicken eggs. Lisa Jackson says you need a lot of eggs to make enough vaccine for hundreds of millions of people, and the swine flu virus is not growing as quickly as other viruses. "So, you are getting less virus from each of your chicken eggs, and things are taking longer," she says. That means we may not get doses of the vaccine until later in the fall. The trial this summer will determine if each person will need one shot of vaccine or two.
For anyone interested in volunteering for the trial, if you're age 18 and older, call Group Health Center for Health Studies at 206-287-2061 or toll free 866-883-6772. Those interested in vaccine trials for children up to age 17 should call Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute at 206-884-1100.
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