INFLUENZA PREVENTION

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 369, 25 February 1937, Page 7

INFLUENZA PREVENTION

New-laid Eggs Are Latest Recruits. London, February 7. Britain, still in the grip of the worst influenza epidemic for many years, is keenly interested in a report published here this 'Week by Dr F. M. Burnet, the Melbourne scientist, who bolds out a new hope of finding a protective vaccine against Ihe disease. Dr Burnet has been carrying on his researches in London as well as at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne.

New-laid eggs,■'it seems, are the latest recruits to be enlisted in the fight against ’flu. Viruses which are not only invisible to the most powerful microscopes but impossible to grow in test tubes like ordinary germs have presented a big problem to bacteriologists. In research they have had to be propagated through a series of animals, but with this method it 'V‘.j,s difficult to prevent the infection from spreading further than was wanted. By using eggs Dr Burnet has been able to keep the germs as securely locked up as If they were in test tubes.

Eggs are taken from the hen within six days of laying and kept in an incubato” till they are halfway towards hatching. A -tiny “window l ” it' cut in the shell With a dentist’s drill. The fragile membrane underneath, which is rich in blood vessels serving as lungs for the unhatched chicken, is inoculated, by dropping on it a little fluid containing the virus. The window is closed with a tiny flip of glass, sealed at the edges with paraffin wax, and the egg is put back in the incubator for the virus to grow. It was found that 'flu virus was altered by transplantation to eggs; when it had been passed 76 times from one egg to another it lost its power of producing symptoms l of ’flu in animals, but, instead made them highly resistant to infection from other sources. Attempts are being made to prepare a vaccine from this modified virus to give mankind full protection. It will be taken in drops through the nose.