Australian researches announce the launch of an anti-swine flu vaccine in several months

The Australian researchers estimate that an anti-swine flu vaccine will be launched in several months’ time should the clinical tests accelerate, AFP informs. Australia is one of the most affected countries in Asia-Pacific region, counting almost 4,000 swine flu infection cases and six A/H1N1 victims.

Queensland University researchers announced that they produced the first Australian lot of the American FluBlok vaccine. Anton Middelberg stated that the Protein Sciences Corporation laboratory, headquartered in Connecticut, considers human testing in the US, Mexico and Australia. „We hope that Australia will be among the first states to benefit from the new technology. It all depends on the normal procedures in this case, but I would say we’re a few months away from circulating a vaccine”, he added.

The vaccine is not yet authorised in Australia, but Middelberg hopes the tests will soon happen. American company Protein Sciences announced last week that the vaccine will be ready for tests by mid-July.

The vaccine is created with the help of infected insect cells, a revolutionary technology according to the American labs. The big pharmaceutical laboratories are racing each other in finding an anti-swine flu vaccine. According to the World Health Organisation survey published on Friday, the virus infected 59,814 people worldwide, leading to 263 deaths. Australia currently counts 3,912 infections and six dead.