WCS press release: Avian flu vaccine under development with help of WCS

I've often argued here the importance of studying disease issues at the wildlife/livestock/human interface.  We just can't ignore livestock and wildlife health if we really want to protect human health as over 60% of the 1400 known human pathogens and and ~75% of emerging infectious diseases  transmit between people and animals.

A new press release from the Wildlife Conservation Society outlines how the virus samples they collected during their expedition to Mongolia will be used in part of a human pandemic influenza vaccine. 

I still think it's more important, and cost-effective, to stop avian flu before it becomes a pandemic, through improved biosecurity to reduce transmission: 1) within and among poultry and domestic duck production facilities, and 2) between domestic and wild birds.  This is currently largely a domestic bird disease, and the best way to stop its spread (and therefore reduce opportunities for it to evolve the ability to transmit among humans) is in domestic birds.

However, if we are unable to stop it from going pandemic, having the best vaccine possible to protect humans is critical.  The work to obtain samples of the H5N1 virus from Mongolia by WCS will help in this endeavour.