150million predicted, page-15

tamiflu, relenza plug gap ahead of bird flu vaccin The research team aims to deliver a trial vaccine against the virulent H5N1 strain of the disease, within a matter of months. Once developed, the vaccine could be used to safeguard Australia's poultry industry.

CSIRO's Dr Chris Prideaux says that even if development of a vaccine is too late to help control the current outbreak in Asia, it would still be possible for researchers to quickly adapt it to deal with new strains of avian influenza.

"In this way, if we are successful in creating a more effective vaccine, this would then provide a new option for controlling avian influenza outbreaks if and when they arise, either in Australia or overseas," he says.

The research will utilise Imugene's Adenoviral Vector Delivery System (AVDS) - which originated from CSIRO research - to deliver a small portion of the flu genetic material to poultry to stimulate the birds' immune response and provide protection from the flu virus.

Imugene's Managing Director, Dr Warwick Lamb, says the platform AVDS allows a new potential vaccine to be constructed quickly at CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong - one of the world's leading animal disease diagnosis and research facilities.

"The CSIRO research team have been working with the AVDS and its use with poultry for over a decade and have relevant experience with chicken viruses," Dr Lamb says.

"Vaccines based on the AVDS only use a portion of the viral structure of the flu virus, making them safer than a live attenuated vaccine approach. With the latter approach, there is some risk that the vaccine could mutate or combine with naturally occurring influenza virus, resulting in potential new strains that are not covered by the existing vaccines. The AVDS vaccine would avoid this problem."