ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
Hundreds of young children are getting a cocktail of weakened flu viruses squirted up their noses this fall in final tests of what may become the nation's first nasal vaccine to fight influenza.
If it works, Americans would get an alternative to a flu shot - and proponents foresee more people being protected against the flu's yearly miseries.
``This vaccine does have advantages,'' Dr. Dominick Iacuzio of the National Institutes of Health said Tuesday during a meeting of international flu experts.
For most people, the flu causes fever, aches, chills and assorted miseries that put them into bed for a few days. But influenza can be deadly, causing pneumonia and other complications that kill some 20,000 Americans a year.
Many of the elderly, heart patients and others at high risk don't get vaccinated. A flu shot every October is about 70 percent effective at either preventing the virus or ensuring a milder bout.
Now scientists are searching for better protection, on Tuesday outlining research into everything from genetically engineered vaccines that could be brewed faster than today's laborious shots to nasal vaccines using influenza antigens never before tried.
Aviron Inc.'s nasal vaccine - which uses a live but weakened flu virus instead of the killed virus in today's shots - is the furthest in development.
Some 1,000 children ages 1 to 6, an age group where flu runs rampant, are being enrolled at 10 medical centers nationwide for final testing, said Aviron researcher Dr. Paul Mendelman. Half will get Aviron's vaccine squirted up their noses, while the rest get a squirt of placebo.
If the flu spray proves effective, Aviron, based in Mountain View, Calif., hopes to have Food and Drug Administration approval to sell it for the 1999 flu season, Mendelman said.
In an earlier, smaller study of adults, the nasal vaccine appeared 85 percent effective at preventing flu, Mendelman told Tuesday's meeting. Side effects were minor, including headache, runny nose and cough.
Today's shots are made of killed flu virus, with a different cocktail brewed to protect against each year's strains, such as the particularly harsh Wuhan flu expected this winter.
Aviron's nasal vaccine, in contrast, is made of live virus weakened enough so it won't sicken people even as it alerts the immune system to fight influenza.
Some of the world's most effective vaccines are made of live viruses, including measles and polio vaccines, noted the NIH's Iacuzio.
Plus, because the spray easier to administer than injections that must be given by health-care workers, ``it could widen the numbers who get vaccinated, especially kids,'' Iacuzio added.
LENGTH: Medium: 58 linesby CNB