An experimental smallpox vaccine believed to be safer than the traditional vaccination has been shown in laboratory tests to effectively protect monkeys and mice against a pox virus, researchers say. A preparation called modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) was found to prompt the immune system to produce antibodies and protective lymphocytes — white blood cells — about as effectively as the traditional smallpox vaccine, called Dryvax, when tested on monkeys. Dr. Bernard Moss of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the National Institutes of Health, said the test proved that MVA was safer because monkeys injected only with MVA did not develop the sores and other side effects common in traditional smallpox vaccinations. A report on the monkey study is published this week in the journal Nature. A second study, in which mice were the test animals, is being published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Moss said when MVA was injected first into the monkeys and then followed with the traditional smallpox vaccine, some animals developed sores, but the lesions were much milder than with Dryvax alone.
| This is what they needed to justify the human trials. Those should go ahead now. |
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