Vaccine Weekly articles from March 1998

Vaccine Weekly archives from March 1998

Monkeys key to AIDS vaccine?
March 2, 1998... Why do simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) cause no disease in their natural monkey hosts? The answer - that the animals rapidly mount effective immune responses that control early viral replication - may lead researchers to an effective...

Single chimp-to-human transmission started AIDS in 1940s.
March 2, 1998... Most cases of AIDS can be tranced to a single chimpanzee-to-human transmission that occurred in central Africa in the 1940s. Genetic analysis of HIV-1 detected in a 1959 serum sample shows that the isolate sits very close to the center of the...

Will HAART open door to therapeutic AIDS vaccine? (highly active antiretroviral therapy)
March 2, 1998... Does having HAART change everything? A leading AIDS researcher has suggested that therapeutic vaccination to boost the immune systems of people with HIV infection - unsuccessful so far - should be tried together with potent new drag regimens....

Biomira presents additional MUC-1 data at vaccine conference. (peptide vaccine; Fifth International Conference on Vaccine Technologies)
March 2, 1998... Biomira Inc., Edmonton, Canada, presented pre-clinical data on BLP25 at IBC's Fifth International Conference on Vaccine Technologies in Washington, DC. Babita Agrawal, Ph.D., Head of Immunology Research at Biomira made the presentation on BLP25,...

U.S. experts: food poisoning vaccine works. (vaccine against Escherichia coli)
March 2, 1998... U.S. government researchers said they have developed an experimental vaccine against the strain of E. coli bacteria that causes a sometimes fatal form of food poisoning. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said the genetically engineered...

Vical licenses "naked" DNA technology to Centocor.
March 2, 1998... Vical Inc., San Diego, California, announced the signing of an agreement allowing Centocor Inc. to use Vical's "naked" DNA technology to develop and market gene-based vaccines for the potential treatment of certain types of cancer. The agreement...

IAVI receives $4 million grant to advance global vaccine development. (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative)
March 2, 1998... The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has received a $4 million award from The Starr Foundation to advance HIV vaccine research and development. IAVI is the non-profit, science-based AIDS organization dedicated to ensuring the...

Endorex Corp. signs option agreement for oral delivery of vaccine.
March 2, 1998... Endorex Corp., Chicago, Illinois, announced that it has signed an exclusive option agreement with BTG, a leading international technology transfer company, to negotiate a final license agreement for peptide hepatitis B immunogens and their...

AIDS researchers appeal for vaccine help.
March 2, 1998... Leading U.S. AIDS researchers appealed for help from across the scientific community in finding a vaccine against HIV. Peter Kim of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said vaccine research needed all the help it could get. With more than...

Chiron completes enrollment in Phase I clinical trial. (hepatitis C vaccine clinical trial)
March 2, 1998... Chiron Corporation, Emeryville, California, announced that it has finished enrollment in a Phase I trial of its Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) vaccine. The trial is intended to evaluate the safety and tolerability of two different doses of the...

Flu patients may now have access to experimental oral treatment.
March 2, 1998... Adults in the United States with flu-like symptoms may now volunteer to participate in a clinical study testing a new experimental drug designed to treat influenza. Approximately 65 study sites across the country are now enrolling volunteers...

Company announces results from the Thailand clinical trial. (Immune Response Corp; Remune clinical trial)
March 2, 1998... The Immune Response Corporation, Carlsbad, California, announced the publication and presentation of the most recent data from the Thailand open-label clinical trial using Remune. The data was published in the journal Vaccine (Volume 16, Number...

Too many meetings may make your workers sick. (influenza transmission in the workplace)
March 2, 1998... If you are an employer worded about the toll that 1998's influenza strains are taking on your work force, San Francisco internist Dr. Jane Hamersley has some advice for you: as soon as employees start to feel "flu-ish," send them home. How...

Bird flu virus jumped from chickens to human.
March 2, 1998... Researchers said that the killer Hong Kong "bird flu" virus jumped directly from chickens to humans and medical experts called for increased surveillance and better vaccines to prepare for an influenza pandemic. A team of international...

MMR coverage in the UK falls after adverse publicity. (mumps, measles and rubella vaccine)
March 2, 1998... Vaccination coverage data must be collected and disseminated swiftly if changes in coverage are to be detected early enough for public health services to respond efficiently. The latest quarterly statistics from the United Kingdom (UK) show...

M. leprae vaccine approved in India. (Mycobacterium leprae)
March 2, 1998... India's National Institute of Immunology has developed a vaccine against Mycobacterium leprae, the organism that causes leprosy. The vaccine incorporates a killed, non-pathogenic Mycobacterium strain which was isolated in the 1970s from a...

Meningitis vaccine found effective. (vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis)
March 2, 1998... A vaccine used to defuse a Texas outbreak of meningitis was found to be effective, although two patients contracted the disease even after being vaccinated, U.S. researchers said. The outbreak of the Neisseria Meningitis strain, which kills an...

Vaccine efficacious in first large-scale demonstration. (vaccine against Neisseria meningitidis)
March 2, 1998... A vaccine for meningitis is useful in controlling the most common type of meningitis outbreak in the United States, according to an article in the February 11, 1998, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA,...

Committee recommends routine use of vaccine in infants. (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices)
March 2, 1998... The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to recommend routine use of the first vaccine developed to prevent rotavirus gastroenteritis in infants. The committee will...

Vaccine safe but ineffective in the middle-aged and elderly. (pneumococcal vaccine)
March 2, 1998... Until now, the protective effectiveness of immunization against pneumonia by the 23-valent pneumococcal capsular polysaccharide vaccine in the middle-aged and elderly has not been clear. Now, in a study in The Lancet, a research team from...

New canarypox vaccine elicits durable anti-HIV CTLs. (cytotoxic T-lymphocytes)
March 9, 1998... Can one HIV vaccine elicit cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) responses from genetically diverse individuals? Results from a Phase II clinical trial point to a positive answer. The trial investigated the ability of Pasteur Merieux/Connaught's new...

Monkey studies suggest anti-HIV antibodies can protect.
March 9, 1998... Can HIV antigens be presented in a way that works? Monkey studies show that improved presentation of HIV antigens - at sufficient doses and combined with adjuvant - can completely protect against infection with chimeric simian/human...

Fingerless HIV may point to vaccine.
March 9, 1998... HIV can't get a grip without its zinc fingers - but it could hang on long enough to immunize. HIV's so-called zinc fingers are part of the virus's p7 nucleocapsid (NC) protein. Needed for zinc binding crucial to virus replication, these...

Immunotoxin DNA immunization stimulates strong anti-tumor activity.
March 9, 1998... DNA immunization with the immunotoxin mesothelin combines selective cytotoxicity, with high activity, stability and effective tumor killing. Mesothelin is a 40-kDa glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked glycoprotein that is present on the surface...

Study finds first vaccine against an arenavirus safe and effective.
March 9, 1998... A trial of a live attenuated vaccine for prevention of Argentine hemorrhagic fever has yielded remarkably successful results. Of 6,500 men participating in the vaccine efficacy trial, only one who was immunized with the live, attenuated virus...

Africa: gains reported against Rift Valley fever.
March 9, 1998... A visibly happy Mohamed Abdi said he gave praise to Allah when he heard that Rift Valley Fever was now less prevalent in his home area in Kenya's North-Eastern Province. "It is a great relief that the frightening disease is finally under...

US NIAID requesting research on parasite prevention and control strategies. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)
March 9, 1998... The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is inviting grant proposals for multidisciplinary research leading to the development and evaluation of new strategies to prevent and control diseases caused by protozoan and helminth...

Two approvals in Latin America to market ZADAXIN thymosin alpha 1 received. (drug approval for hepatitis)
March 9, 1998... SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Inc., San Mateo, California, announced that it has received government approval to market its lead drug, ZADAXIN thymosin alpha 1, in Argentina and Peru. These ZADAXIN marketing approvals are SciClone's first in Latin...

Canadian doctors urge caution regarding Hungarian claim of hepatitis cure. (Canadian Association for the Study of Liver)
March 9, 1998... The Canadian Association for the Study of Liver (CASL) is urging Canadians affected by hepatitis C to respond with caution to reports from Hungary of a cure for the disease. (See pages 12-13 of this issue.) Canadian patient and consumer groups...

Hepatitis experts wary of cure claim. (officials of Hepatitis C Society of Canada)
March 9, 1998... The Hepatitis C Society of Canada says claims of a cure for hepatitis C and B is a bit of a stretch. The society reacted with caution February 18, 1998, after word that scientists in the United States and Hungary are claiming a cure for the...

U.S. said child vaccinations at record levels.
March 9, 1998... Childhood immunization levels were the highest ever recorded through mid-1997, U.S. health officials said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said 90 percent or more of America's toddlers had received the most critical...

WHO announces influenza vaccine formula for 1998/1999. (World Health Organization)
March 9, 1998... The composition of the influenza vaccine for the 1998-1999 season was announced at a meeting of international experts held at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. As a result of the meeting, held February...

Winter flu wave takes a vicious toll in Japan.
March 9, 1998... Some of the world's top athletes got it at the just-finished Winter Olympics at Nagano. Japanese pupils may have caught it in school, or "salarymen" in the country's many crowded subways. Whatever the exact cause, a severe flu epidemic is...

Hungarian and U.S. physicians claim new hepatitis cure.
March 9, 1998... Hungarian researchers said they were testing a vaccine against hepatitis B and C and that in a small preliminary trial it seemed cheap, safe and effective. (See pages 8-9 of this issue also.) They said their vaccine used a harmless virus known...