New Vaccines Combat Bird Flu's H5N1 and H7N9 Strains

There's some good news when it comes to the bird flu. Scientists have developed vaccines for the H5N1 and H7N9 strains of avian influenza.

These strains of bird flu have killed millions of commercial chickens and turkeys and have even led to the deaths of hundreds of people. The new vaccines, though, should help prevent such devastating losses.

The researchers actually focused on the avian influenza virus subtype H5N1, which is a new strain that's most active in Indonesia, Egypt and other Southeast Asian and North African countries. H5N1 also has been documented in wild birds in the U.S., though in fewer numbers.

"H5N1 is a zoonotic pathogen, which means that it is transmitted from chickens to humans," said Jurgen Richt, one of the researchers, in a news release. "So far is has infected more than 700 people worldwide and has killed about 60 percent of them. Unfortunately, it has a pretty high mortality rate."

In order to create a vaccine for H5N1, the researchers combined two viruses. The researchers cloned a vaccine strain of the Newcastle disease virus, which is a virus that naturally affects poultry. Then, they placed a small section of the H5N1 virus into the Newcastle disease virus vaccine, which created a recombinant virus.

So what were the results? The new recombinant virus vaccinated chickens against both Newcastle disease virus and H5N1.

The scientists also looked at H7N9, an emerging zoonotic strain that has been circulating in China since 2013. The researchers used the same method as for H5N1 and created a vaccine that protected against the Newcastle disease virus and H7N9.

"We believe this Newcastle disease virus concept works very well for poultry because you kill two birds with one stone, metaphorically speaking," said Richt. "You use only one vector to vaccinate and protect against a selected virus strain of avian influenza."

The findings are important for protecting birds and people against these diseases.

The findings are published in the Journal of Virology.

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