We have come to expect science to move ever more quickly today, but it is a remarkably swift bit of work, indeed, for vaccine researchers to already have developed vaccines for H1N1v, or swine flu. They may even have them ready for wide distribution in time for flu season.
Researchers at the University of Antwerp, according to story in Flanders Today, on the effort, are now comparing a number of potential vaccine candidates to see which works best in a study group of several hundred volunteers.
“There is a good chance that a [H1N1v] flu vaccine is available early November,” said vaccine expert Pierre van Damme, director of the Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination, a department of the Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute at the University.
Van Damme told the newspaper that he hopes the test results on the volunteers will be ready in October.
“Then the test reports will be delivered to the proper authorities and it is up to them to give the go-ahead to the vaccine,” van Damme said. “Consequently, the mass production can start and a few weeks later the vaccine can be launched. This means that a vaccine will probably be available by the beginning of November.”