Japanese To Trial Bird Flu Vaccine On Government Staff
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008Government workers in Japan may soon become lab mice in the first large scale tests of a vaccine designed specifically to target Avian Flu, popularly know as ‘Bird Flu’. The plans to conduct this test have been outlined by the Japanese Health Ministry, which will initially propose to vaccinate some 6,000 people between now and March of next year. If deemed successful, there will be further plans to immunise some 10 million people against the possibly life-threatening H5N1 strain of the virus.
The vaccine itself has been specifically designed to target this HRN1 strain amidst fear of a global pandemic, as well as the not so unrealistic chance of the virus mutating into a form which we could be defenceless against. A pandemic, such as this, could have dire consequences which may champion, statistically speaking, the last global killer of this proportion – the Black Death.
Japan are amongst the leading countries when it comes to preparing themselves for such a pandemic, and with good reason. Although Japan may be an island nation it still finds itself within both South East Asia and the immediate reach of the strain which have ravaged parts of the continent, including Indonesia and South Korea. As a result, the government has stockpiled several million doses of the vaccine to prevent what they believe would be some 500,000 deaths.