http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/626480
Helen Branswell
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Consider it an investment in pandemic preparedness that paid off big time.
A new rapid diagnostic test for influenza that was being developed with U.S. government funding and being assessed in a clinical trial spotted the first observed case of a swine flu virus that may be poised to trigger the first flu pandemic of the 21st century.
"It was just an absolute surprise," says Dr. Dan Jernigan, deputy director of the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where the virus was eventually identified.
"You talk about a needle in the haystack and happening to have the right needle detector."
After running somewhere between 50 and 100 diagnostic tests, the system, made by Meso Scale Diagnostics of Gaithersburg, Md., turned up the swine flu virus currently spreading through a growing number of countries.
The senior U.S. official who heads the agency which has been stimulating the development of this and other pandemic-related tests, vaccines and antivirals, said his team was thrilled by the fact that a product they funded spotted the new virus.
"We're obviously proud. It did what we thought it would do," said Dr. Robin Robinson, director for the office of biomedical advanced research and development authority, a division of the U.S. department of health and human services.
"We invested... large amounts of money into different things, so when one of these comes up ... this is what it was supposed to do."
BARDA, as Robinson's group is called, knew that during a flu pandemic it would be critical to be able to quickly diagnose people who were actually infected with the pandemic virus.
It worked with manufacturers, requiring that to get BARDA funding the proposal had to be for a test that would produce a result in 30 minutes, be affordable and be able to detect a variety of known human flu strains.
The tests had to also be able to detect what is known as unsubtypeable flu viruses ? viruses that aren't among the usual battery that circulate in humans.
Novel flu viruses from other mammals can occasionally jump into humans and cause infection. If they start spreading from person to person, they can trigger a pandemic because people have no immunity to them.
The Meso Scale test was developed and sent out to clinical trial to see if it actually worked. One site where it was being tested was Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, Calif., Robinson explained.
It was set up there in early March. And on March 31, an unsubtypeable virus was reported.
Robinson said the protocol required all flu viruses that couldn't be typed to be sent to a clinical laboratory. It too couldn't type the virus and sent it to a reference laboratory in Wisconsin, which sent it to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
There, a lab run by Canadian Dr. Steve Lindstrom started to study the virus. It wasn't long before the researchers knew they had something really different, Robinson said.
They first spotted parts of the virus that looked like one that has been circulating in pigs in North America for a number of years, a virus that contained swine, avian and human genes. When they looked further, they spotted new genes in the constellation ? two genes previously seen in swine viruses from Thailand.
"It was like: Holy smoke, we have a new virus here," Robinson said.
He suggested the extraordinary chain of events shows the dividends pandemic planning can play.
"I think what it says ? if you have the products that have the right specificity and the right selectivity and robustness and flexibility built in... they're going to do what they're supposed to do. And it did," he said.
16:33ET 29-04-09
Helen Branswell
THE CANADIAN PRESS
Consider it an investment in pandemic preparedness that paid off big time.
A new rapid diagnostic test for influenza that was being developed with U.S. government funding and being assessed in a clinical trial spotted the first observed case of a swine flu virus that may be poised to trigger the first flu pandemic of the 21st century.
"It was just an absolute surprise," says Dr. Dan Jernigan, deputy director of the influenza division at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where the virus was eventually identified.
"You talk about a needle in the haystack and happening to have the right needle detector."
After running somewhere between 50 and 100 diagnostic tests, the system, made by Meso Scale Diagnostics of Gaithersburg, Md., turned up the swine flu virus currently spreading through a growing number of countries.
The senior U.S. official who heads the agency which has been stimulating the development of this and other pandemic-related tests, vaccines and antivirals, said his team was thrilled by the fact that a product they funded spotted the new virus.
"We're obviously proud. It did what we thought it would do," said Dr. Robin Robinson, director for the office of biomedical advanced research and development authority, a division of the U.S. department of health and human services.
"We invested... large amounts of money into different things, so when one of these comes up ... this is what it was supposed to do."
BARDA, as Robinson's group is called, knew that during a flu pandemic it would be critical to be able to quickly diagnose people who were actually infected with the pandemic virus.
It worked with manufacturers, requiring that to get BARDA funding the proposal had to be for a test that would produce a result in 30 minutes, be affordable and be able to detect a variety of known human flu strains.
The tests had to also be able to detect what is known as unsubtypeable flu viruses ? viruses that aren't among the usual battery that circulate in humans.
Novel flu viruses from other mammals can occasionally jump into humans and cause infection. If they start spreading from person to person, they can trigger a pandemic because people have no immunity to them.
The Meso Scale test was developed and sent out to clinical trial to see if it actually worked. One site where it was being tested was Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, Calif., Robinson explained.
It was set up there in early March. And on March 31, an unsubtypeable virus was reported.
Robinson said the protocol required all flu viruses that couldn't be typed to be sent to a clinical laboratory. It too couldn't type the virus and sent it to a reference laboratory in Wisconsin, which sent it to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
There, a lab run by Canadian Dr. Steve Lindstrom started to study the virus. It wasn't long before the researchers knew they had something really different, Robinson said.
They first spotted parts of the virus that looked like one that has been circulating in pigs in North America for a number of years, a virus that contained swine, avian and human genes. When they looked further, they spotted new genes in the constellation ? two genes previously seen in swine viruses from Thailand.
"It was like: Holy smoke, we have a new virus here," Robinson said.
He suggested the extraordinary chain of events shows the dividends pandemic planning can play.
"I think what it says ? if you have the products that have the right specificity and the right selectivity and robustness and flexibility built in... they're going to do what they're supposed to do. And it did," he said.
16:33ET 29-04-09