Looking to Nature for a Cure: Developing the Human Pandemic Influenza Vaccine

As the public health community gears up to fend off the latest threat to the wellbeing of wildlife, livestock, and humans around the globe, the World Health Organization has turned to health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to help develop a new vaccine for human pandemic avian influenza. In August, WCS field veterinarians, in collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture, traveled to Mongolia after dead wild ducks, geese, and swans were found in that country’s Kovsgol province. There they discovered the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus in samples collected from the wild birds. The unique genetic characteristics of these samples make them a valuable addition to an influenza vaccine based on a variety of viral strains. “Nature is the largest, most incompletely catalogued library on earth,” said Dr. William Karesh, director of the WCS Field Veterinary Program. “This is just one more example of the value of protecting the diversity of life on our planet, and how monitoring the health of wild species serves not only to protect them, but also can have huge payoffs for humankind.”

During the Mongolian expedition, which was funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), WCS veterinarians worked with Mongolian government agencies in an unprecedented joint effort to investigate the disease outbreak. Their surveillance of both living and dead birds from the Gobi Desert to the northern mountain lakes of the country provided much-needed data on the epidemiology of the virus in wild birds. The collaboration amongst the team of scientists, veterinarians, and public health officials reflected the WCS One World-One Health approach that is invaluable to making informed decisions on global health crises that intersect human, wildlife, and livestock populations.

Despite the presence of the virus in some of the samples collected, WCS wildlife health experts, together with those from the FAO. and the World Organization for Animal Health, maintain that indiscriminate culling of wild migratory bird populations would be ineffective in preventing the spread of avian flu. Instead, they are urging officials to focus resources on hubs such as open-air farms and wildlife markets, where humans, livestock, and wildlife come into close contact and risk exposure to a wide range of pathogens. Experts also advocate the use of effective vaccines as required.

The White House’s recently released “National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza” acknowledges the need to “expand and enhance mechanisms for screening and monitoring animals that may harbor viruses with pandemic potential.”

Congressional leaders have also responded to the scientific findings by introducing legislation aimed at better preparing the U.S. for the pandemic by establishing a global network to monitor wild bird diseases and distributing real-time surveillance results to combat the spread of avian influenza. “Just as we track hurricanes when they begin as a tropical storm, we must track wild migratory birds and the viral storms they carry over oceans and continents and share that data with the world,” said Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who recently introduced the Global Network for Avian Influenza Surveillance Act.

WCS has been reaching out to several congresspeople to ensure that any legislation on avian flu adequately addresses the gap in U.S. surveillance efforts. “WCS has been at the forefront of research into the avian flu pandemic, and this development underscores the importance of their work,” said Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY 18), author of the Pandemic Preparedness and Response Act. “This development will help ensure that we have a more accurate vaccine to target a possible avian flu pandemic. As we work in Congress to bolster preparedness for an avian flu pandemic, contributions like this from the scientific community will be critical to ensure that the steps we take will protect the public as best as possible.”

Want to tell Congress you support wildlife surveillance as a key component of avian flu preparedness legislation?
Click here to take action today!

For Media Contact Information, Please Click Here.