(UPDATE*) Lots of Ink: Maybe it’ll be late, but at least swine flu vaccine will work with just one jab
Lots of news today on a report from Australia that one of the leading prospective mass-produced vaccines for H1N1 swine flu evokes plenty of immunity with just one shot. The NYTimes‘s Donald G. McNeil Jr., got it on the front page with the associated reason this is so important in the lede: With production straining to get enough of it made, it appears it should go twice as far as if, as had been suspected, it would take two shots per person. The individual benefit of not having to go to the clinic twice is, in the public health calculus, clearly secondary. The news stems for results published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine.
The good news on the vaccine’s efficacy may be too late for many, as the material is not expected in quantity until November or so. As McNeil also reminds readers, the disease is now spreading in largely unstoppable fashion and is “surging again” in the Southeast US in particular.
*UPDATE 1 (posted Sept.14) : On the next day McNeil dropped the other shoe. The Hed: Vaccine Supply May Miss Swine Flu Peak. The vaccine may go further but, this follow declares, the peak of the epidemic is expected “…next month, long before enough vaccine to protect all 159 million Americans who need it most will be ready.”
UPDATE2 : At Slate, Jack Shafer on Friday posted a critique of media in general by declaring “the top dailies are too upbeat about the coming pandemic.” One reason he provides is just what McNeil himself reported at about the same time – the vaccine supply may arrive after the disease in the US and elsewhere has already peaked.
This is a somewhat tough story to cover – is it an urgent and fearsome health matter that ought to be stirring deep investigation into whether the vaccine could have been made more quickly, or is the better angle one of reassurance? The disease turns out to be highly contagious – a true pandemic and therefore able to leave a wide swath of illness including appreciable deaths. Yet it is also not particularly different from ordinary seasonal flu in its peril to the average person who gets it. With SARS and the huge buildup of fear and preparation for a conceivable bird flu epidemic in mind, the disease seems to have elicited an initial overrection that is gradually being corrected in media and public health measures.
Wherever a reporter decides to set the anxiety thermostat, it does seem that the lateness of the vaccine merits equal billing with discovery that, when it gets here, it will take only one shot to do the trick for most of us.
Other H1N1 vaccine trial stories:
- Washington Post – Rob Stein: Swine Flu Vaccine Works With One Shot / Protection Occurs in 10 Days, Study Finds; Stein gets into a bit of the puzzle in the vaccine’s potency and why experience with standard seasonal flu makes it a surprise ;
- NPR – Scott Hensley: One Swine Flu Shot Ought to Do You ;
- AP – Lauren Neergaard: Studies: 1 dose of swine flu vaccine works ;
- Wall St. Journal (blog) Shirley S. Wang: Swine Flu Update: A Single-Dose Vaccine Appears to Work, Study Shows;
- Times (UK) Sam Lister: Swine flu vaccine may work with a single jab, studies suggest ;
- LA Times – Thomas H. Maugh II: One dose of swine flu vaccine may be enough ;
- SF Chronicle – Erin Allday: One swine flu vaccine dose may work for adults ;
Other H1N1 News:
- AP – Mike Stobbe: Did drug-resistant swine flu spread at NC camp?: Maybe Tamiflu is losing its ability to tamp the disease…
- Reuters – Julie Steenhuysen: Pandemic gives Vical H1N1 vaccine a shot ; A vignette on one company’s struggle with funding and testing.
- Reuters – Scott Anderson: Canada’s H1N1 vaccine seen for early November ; Which is a bit later than some other nations.
- AFP: Swine flu death toll reaches 3,205: WHO ;
