The World Health Organization has announced that, although the flu virus known as H1N1, or Swine Flu, remains a significant threat, it is still only a moderate threat and has not mutated significantly in recent months. This is good news, since vaccine manufacturers have had to work with older versions of the virus and hope that the natural causes of gene mutation haven't changed the virus enough to render their work useless, come flu season. With weather in the Northern Hemisphere cooling, and our usual flu season approaching, there's increased pressure to come up with a vaccine.
In a Reuters press release today, WHO indicated that it has stopped requiring member states to report cases of the flu, but to date, about 250,000 people have been affected and it's expected to affect nearly 2 billion people before the pandemic ends. Novartis AG announced on Thursday that they might have a vaccine that can be administered in a single dose, as opposed to the two doses that previous research indicated would be required. This news came after results of a pilot study on 100 healthy individuals, given the MF59-adjuvanted cell-based A vaccine, were reported in a news release by the University of Leicester on Thursday. Cell-based vaccines such as those produced using vero cells, are one of the many techniques being rapidly advanced by our impending need for protection from H1N1. The new technologies being developed now will be useful to other companies developing vaccines for other diseases, down the road.
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