Mediocre avian flu vaccine still better than Tamiflu?

(Our friends at blog.bioethics.net noted a paper in the latest issue of BMJ titled "An iatrogenic pandemic of panic." It's a fact vs. fiction piece that's as provocative as the title suggests. About 20% of our posts have been about avian flu vaccines, which doesn't seem excessive, but we're mindful that ample attention should be given to the many other vaccine issues that are real, present, and affect populations around the world every day. That said, avian flu vaccines are making a lot of news lately, and traffic to this site from search engines suggests that many are looking for info on the topic. We're striving to find the right balance...)

A paper published online at the website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS -- subscription required) reports that a moderately effective avian flu vaccine (meaning one that is not a close match to the viral strain circulating) would be a more effective way to limit the spread of avian flu in its early stages than the widespread use of antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu. The paper is titled "Mitigation strategy for pandemic influenza in the United States" (Germann, TC, et al.). Here's the Bloomberg story about it.

Ultimately, the question this paper (and all stockpiling efforts) address is how best to buy time in the early weeks of a pandemic until a perfect-match vaccine is produced. The results in this paper are based on statistical modeling, the limitations of which are many. Nevertheless, it suggests that a vaccine about as effective as the Sanofi product in the news last week (our post here), coupled with school closings and voluntary social distancing, offers the best strategy for limiting the virus' spread in its early stages