Vaccine to beat bird flu before it starts

The new vaccine might protect people from the mutation that would change the H5N1 avian flu virus from a germ affecting mostly birds to one that infects people very easily. This being considered as a major step in the direction of combating virus mutation and diseases associated with the same.

Experts have been expressing their stand that there is no way to vaccinate people against a new strain of influenza until that strain evolves. But team at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Maryland and the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said they may have found a short-cut in the form of possibility to create this new kind of vaccine.

Monoclonal antibodies are engineered immune system proteins that specifically attack proteins on a tumor or, in this case specifically being used on the flu virus.