The European Commission will fund a number of avian and pandemic influenza projects that include the development of new cell culture-based vaccines, reports Scrip. Under the European Union's sixth research framework programme, 17 new projects in human and animal health will receive euro28.3 million. The human health projects will cover research to provide a better understanding of how the influenza virus works and clinical research into development of vaccines. Three projects will look at the development of vaccines against H5N1. The aim of the first, called Panfluvac, is to create delivery systems for injectable and intranasal vaccines against H5N1. The aim of the second project is to determine intranasal, genetically engineered H5N1 vaccines that exert a strong self-adjuvant capability. The third project will examine the use of Intercell's IC31TM adjuvant, with the aim of decreasing the antigen amounts required and increasing immunogenicity.

FormalPara Key words

IC-31 - prevention - therapeutic use - Research-and-development - Health-policy - Influenza-virus-vaccine - Influenza-virus-infections