The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

No shortage of volunteers for swine flu vaccine trials

Area entrepreneurs take lead role for small business owners
Updated 5 min. ago
Students injured after truck hits school bus
Updated 8 min. ago
Contech changes name, ownership structure
1:30 p.m.
Alleged shooter indicted on murder charge
12:58 p.m.
Kasich: Education will lead to new jobs
8:52 a.m.
> More headlines

By Tiffany Y. Latta, Staff Writer 7:41 PM Sunday, August 2, 2009

CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has received dozens of calls since announcing plans to recruit volunteers for upcoming clinical trials for swine flu vaccines.

The hospital has received about 200 calls since last week, when the National Institutes of Health announced the medical center as one of eight facilities nationwide chosen to test two experimental vaccines for H1N1, also known as swine flu. Testing begins this month.

Dr. Robert Frenck, of the infectious diseases division at Children’s, said testing will involve adults and children as young as 6 months.

“We want to make sure the vaccine is safe for different age groups ... The plan is to get safety data in adults first and then move to pediatrics,” Frenck said.

The tests will be similar to other clinical trials that require volunteers to have blood drawn before and after the shot; and to report any adverse reactions such as redness, swelling, fever, body aches or muscle weakness.

The race for a new vaccine comes as the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations anticipate flu infections to skyrocket.

At last count, the CDC reported 43,771 confirmed cases of swine flu nationwide; 353 deaths had been linked to the virus as of Friday, July 31.

Normal flu season, which begins in late September and peaks in January or February, causes about 36,000 deaths annually and about 200,000 hospitalizations, CDC officials said.

But with reports of flu climbing daily in the summer months, officials fear a rapid spread of flu when children go back to school this fall.

“This could be a busy flu year,” Frenck said. “With kids going back to school we expect there is going to be an upsurge.”

For more information on vaccine studies at Cincinnati Children’s, call (513) 636-7699 or visit gambleprogram@cchmc.org.

The other medical facilities involved in the clinical trial include Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Emory University in Atlanta and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

Share this article