Human Trials Underway In China For SARS Vaccine

da_foz writes "A SARS vaccine has begun human trials in Beijing. The vaccine was devoloped with the help of some open source software, a couple details about what was used can be found here. Here is an interesting quote from the second link: 'The Director of the Genome Sciences Centre, Dr. Marco Marra, said he personally requested that his name not be included on the patent application as the scientist who found the genetic sequence. "This stems largely from a personal belief that DNA sequence is a discovery as opposed to an invention and should not be patentable," he said.'"

Comments

Re:Patented Discoveries

[martinX]

Hmmm, should this comment be moderated "informative"?

Re:An interesting irony

[the_other_one]

Ok now that I have RTFA this is not a Chinese vaccine.
However, this does not dilute the irony.

Re:An interesting irony

[Aglassis]

You said: "This is a CBC article about a Chinese vaccine for a disease that has killed relatively few people (statistically speaking)."

The only reason SARS has killed less than 1000 people is the quick action from health agencies. A Dec 2003 CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report cites:

During November 2002--July 2003, a total of 8,098 probable SARS cases were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) from 29 countries, including 29 cases from the United States; 774 SARS-related deaths (case-fatality rate: 9.6%) were reported

Additionally the mortality rate of SARS varies based on age, where the WHO, for example, have estimated a mortality rate of greater than 50% for people over the age of 65. I don't really see why you think its ironic at all that so much effort is being put into a disease that is so dangerous (particularly to our elderly).

Re:An interesting irony

[the_other_one]

Thank ((insert deity)) for the health agencies.
The fact that SARS was controled as quickly as it was by quarantine was a major feather in their cap.

I do not find it ironic at all that so much effort is being put into research into SARS (or any other health matter) than HIV.

The point I was trying to make that it is ironic that this one experimental prevention vaccine for a disease that no one currently (officially) has. Has been imported into China and is being used on humans. People have been dying in multitudes from HIV for much longer than SARS has been around. Children born with HIV are being denied treatment because anti viral drugs (shown to be effective elswhere) have not been government approved. Importing them is illegal.