New Bird Flu Vaccine Works On Birds, Livestock, Humans

October 21, 2008 6:04 a.m. EST

College Park, MD (AHN) - Scientists at the University of Maryland have created a new vaccine that can protect birds, animals and humans from the deadly bird flu virus.

The team led by Prof. Daniel Perez also created a technique to deliver the vaccine based on the H9N1, a weaker strain of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, in bird eggs so that the disease will not spread if the bird flies to other areas.

"We chose genes from H9N2 influenza for the vaccine because the virus can infect many different animals, including chickens, mice and pigs," Perez told Softpedia.com. The vaccine has been tested on lab mice, which were not infected when exposed to both H9N1 and H5N1 viruses.

Current bird flu vaccines are only applicable to specific species and not all animals, including pets and wild birds.

The team's findings are scheduled to be published in the November issue of the Journal of General Virology.