Archive for September 1st, 2009

…and the virus marches on….

1 September, 2009

From News24 this evening:

SA’s H1N1 deaths now 27

2009-09-01 17:03

Cape Town – The number of swine flu deaths in South Africa has risen to 27, and confirmed infections to 5 841, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases said on Tuesday.

“There is also ongoing and widespread community transmission,” it said in a statement.

Of the 27 fatal cases, 12 were pregnant women, five of whom had no identified underlying conditions.

The institute repeated its standard warning that people with depressed immunity, asthma, diabetes, or chronic lung, kidney and heart problems, or who were pregnant should seek early treatment with antivirals.

and on 26th August:

SA wants own H1N1 flu vaccine

2009-08-26 22:29

Cape Town – South Africa has no choice but to develop its own H1N1 flu vaccine, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said on Wednesday, citing concerns treatment will not be available to poorer nations.

“South Africa has arrived at a situation where we have no option but to start developing our own vaccine capacity, not only for H1N1, but generally,” Motsoaledi told parliament.

“The disturbing feature about today’s world… has been expressed by the minister of health for Cambodia… who noted that the developed world, after producing the vaccine, may want to cover their own population first before thinking about the developing world,” Motsoaledi said.

Anyone remember reading that before, anywhere?  Watch this space….

Chimaeric plant virus stimulates influenza virus-specific CD8+ T-cell responses

1 September, 2009

Plant-produced potato virus X chimeric particles displaying an influenza virus-derived peptide activate specific CD8+ T cells in mice

 Chiara Lico, Camillo Mancini, Paola Italiani, Camilla Betti, Diana Boraschi, Eugenio Benvenuto, Selene Baschieri

 Vaccine (2009) 27: 5069 – 5076

 The authors used plant Potexvirus Potato virus X (PVX) to display the Db-restricted nonapeptide ASNENMETM of the nucleoprotein (NP) from influenza A virus (strain A/PR/8/34) to activate specific CD8+ T cells in mice. They paid great attention to the design of the NP-peptide to ensure optimum plant virus stability and antigen processing. The modified NP-peptide was fused to the N-terminal of the coat protein (CP) from PVX creating the pVXSma-NP construct that was subsequently inoculated into tobacco leaves. The resulting chimeric virus particles (NP-CVP) were stable and pure with a yield of approximately 1.1 mg NP-CVP / g fresh leaf tissue. Endotoxin tests were also performed to exclude their contribution to the immunoregulatory effects of the CVPs. Mice were inoculated with two different doses of NP-CVP (50 µg or 167 µg) with or without incomplete Freund’s adjuvant (IFA). The IFN-γ ELISPOT assays indicated that NP-CVPs activated the ASNENMETM-specific CD8+ response, especially the highest concentration of the NP-CVP without the adjuvant. Results also indicated that the CP of PVX contained T helper epitopes that contributed to the CD8+ T cell response. Thus, PVX is not only an epitope carrier but an adjuvant as well. This study illustrates the potential of implementing plant viruses displaying foreign epitopes to elicit T cell responses in vaccine development.

Contributed by Dr Elizabeth (Liezl) Mortimer