H1N1 Flu Vaccine Better than Expected

**Bourne** · 11th September 2009 07:02 PM

This is excellent news. It may be necessary to take only one dose of the Novel H1N1 vaccine instead of two. That means only twos innoculations this fall. One for regular flu and one for Novel H1N1. I'll be getting my flu vaccination the week of October 5th. Right now the medical staff is unsure when the Novel H1N1 vaccine will become available.

Fighting the H1N1 flu virus, otherwise known as swine flu, may have gotten more manageable.

Australian and U.S. researchers said Thursday that one dose of the new swine flu vaccine looks strong enough to protect adults - and can begin protection within 10 days of the shot.

Australian shot maker CSL Ltd. published results of a study that found 75 per cent to 96 per cent of vaccinated people should be protected with one dose - the same degree of effectiveness as the regular winter flu shot. That's remarkable considering scientists thought it would take two doses.

U.S. data to be released Friday confirm those findings and show the protection starts rapidly, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told The Associated Press.

"This is quite good news," Fauci said.

The dose question has an important ramification: It means people will have to line up for influenza vaccinations twice this year instead of three times - once for the regular winter flu shot and a second time to be inoculated against swine flu, what doctors call the 2009 H1N1 strain.

Thursday's swine flu vaccine reports center on adults; studies in children are not finished yet.

But scientists had feared that people of all ages would need two shots about a month apart because the new H1N1 strain is so genetically different from normally circulating flu strains that most of the population has little if any immunity.

Chinese manufacturers gave the first hint a week ago that one dose could be enough. But different manufacturers make different formulations of the vaccine, so more evidence was needed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/...html?tag=stack