New Vaccine Element Could Generate Better Protection From Avian Influenza (Science Daily) Current vaccines for influenza provide protection against specific seasonal influenza A strains and their close relatives, but not against more distant seasonal influenza A viruses and new avian influenza A viruses, such as H5N1, which still poses a real global health concern. However, new data have been generated that suggest adding a new component to vaccines for influenza might enable them to ... [News Source]

Gambia: Gambia-U.S. Ready to Combat Bird Flu (AllAfrica.com) An international workshop on Incident Command System (ICS), aimed at combating bird flu is currently underway at the Paradise Suites Hotel in Kololi. [News Source]

Japanese NIH Scientists Report Robust Cross-Protection With Hemispherx Drug Against Multiple Strains of Bird Flu (GlobeNewswire via Yahoo! Finance) PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 23, 2008 -- Hemispherx Biopharma, Inc. reported that at the Third European Influenza Conference in Portugal , members of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan, reported on the expanded potential role of Ampligen in preventing bird flu. [News Source]

Novartis MF59 adjuvanted vaccine rapidly induces protective antibody levels against diverse strains of avian flu (PharmaBiz) A new study shows that individuals immunized six years earlier with an MF59 adjuvanted H5N3 (clade 0) vaccine mounted a protective immune response seven days after a single immunization with an H5N1 (clade 1) vaccine containing the Novartis proprietary adjuvant MF59. The immune response was broadly cross reactive and covered all H5N1 clades known to date. [News Source]