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Study looks at different approach to protecting people against pandemic flu

Infection Control Monitor, October 20, 2006

A new study shows promise for a different approach to protecting people against pandemic influenza: providing an initial shot to "prime" their immune systems before an outbreak.

The small study by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York supported the idea that people might be better protected by a small dose of a vaccine developed in response to a flu pandemic if they had previously been vaccinated against a related strain.

The study, released last week in a presentation at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, showed that people who were vaccinated with an H5N1 avian flu vaccine in 1998 developed a strong immune response when they recently received a single H5N1 booster shot. In the event of a pandemic, people who were "primed" with an earlier vaccine would need only one booster shot to be protected.

"These preliminary findings need to be confirmed in larger studies, but they offer the intriguing possibility that pre-pandemic priming with existing H5N1 vaccines may boost the immune response to a different H5N1 vaccine tailor-made years later to thwart an emerging human influenza pandemic," said Anthony S. Fauci, MD, National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases director, in a press release. 

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