SAN FRANCISCO - A therapeutic vaccine against severe rotavirus diarrhea, which kills nearly 00,000 children worldwide each year, succeeded in clinical trials. The vaccine works best "to mitigate the outcome of the disease" - not necessarily to prevent it, said Hsieh Chia-Lung, Senior Director of Vaccine Development at Wyeth-Lederle Vaccines and Pediatrics. Featured here at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, the vaccine of the company, called RotaShield, should be on the market by the middle of next year.
Hsieh announced that clinical trials involving 10,500 children in nine countries showed that RotaShield limit the severity of the disease in 80% to 95% of cases. The vaccine is composed of human viral proteins inserted in a similar virus affecting rhesus monkeys.
The experts were initially disappointed that prevention is not the strong point of the vaccine, said pediatrician S. Michael Marcy of the Kaiser Foundation Hospital Panorama City, California, a member of the American Academy of committee of Pediatrics infectious diseases. However, he said the new vaccine will be a great improvement over existing treatments, which amount to just give fluids to sick infants. For this reason, Marcy said, "This vaccine is a winner."
Although rotavirus sickens 3.5 million people - mostly infants - in the United States each year, it is the deadliest in developing countries, where access to health care is limited and poor sanitation. It is also common in the southern United States and within the African-American families, says Hsieh. She says Wyeth-Lederle considering recommending the universal oral vaccination for infants at 2, 4 and 6 months of age.
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