Good news for GSK bird flu vaccine development

We'd be remiss not to at least mention the headlines generated regarding GSK's avian flu vaccine. In short, they announced that their candidate vaccine provided significant levels of antibody protection in more research subjects at a much lower dose than another vaccine in development (namely, the Sanofi vaccine which we wrote about here back in March.)

Here's a sampling of the coverage: New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Associated Press.

This may prove to be excellent news for pandemic preparedness efforts, but as many of the quotes in the stories above illustrate, it's wise to be cautious for now while estimating the significance of the announcement. Part of the reason for this is that the GSK data has not yet been published in the medical literature -- we're all relying on press releases (such as this one) and media briefings at the moment.

More generally, there are a number of issues arising from any 'pre-pandemic' vaccine (i.e., one developed before the virus mutates into a form that spreads easily from human-to-human.). We've written about many of these in the past in response to prior developments, but the editors at Effect Measure explain in this post a number of the unanswered questions specifically relating to the GSK announcement. They consistently do an excellent job covering all aspects of avian flu (not just vaccines) and public health in general, and this post is no exception.