Vaccine could
protect isle birds

The formula would combat the
spread of the West Nile virus

Hawaii Biotech Inc. has developed a vaccine being tested for potential use to protect native Hawaiian birds from the lethal West Nile virus.

The vaccine was tested on about 200 golden hamsters and mice at the University of Texas in Galveston with successful results, said David Watumull, president and chief executive officer of the Aiea-based biopharmaceutical company.

The privately held company has been working several years on a West Nile vaccine but has not tested birds yet, he said, announcing a program designed to do that.

It will begin with domestic white geese from the mainland, he said. Sixty in groups of 10 will be vaccinated at the University of Hawaii-Hilo at three weeks of age, then given a booster shot at six weeks.

Five geese from each group will be sent to the BSL-3 facility at the National Wildlife Center in Madison, Wis., for exposure to live West Nile virus at about 3 months old.

Watumull said there have been no safety issues with any animals tested. "We would expect similar safety in avian species, in birds, but we would need to confirm that."

If the vaccine proves safe and efficient in tests on the geese, further studies will be done on the Hawaiian nene, he said.

Hawaii Biotech will collaborate with state and federal agencies to conduct the program, Watumull said. "Eventually you would want to have or need to have a program to capture and vaccinate these birds."

He stressed that Hawaii Biotech does not have West Nile virus in its laboratories, but is only developing a vaccine for it.

A mosquito-borne disease, West Nile virus has not reached Hawaii, but has affected more than 300 bird species since arriving in the United States in 1999.

The virus could be spread by infected mosquitoes or travelers to Hawaii, as well as avian species that migrate from North America to Hawaii.

Jeff Burgett, U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist specializing in invasive species who leads an interagency West Nile task force, noted difficulties in using a vaccine to protect wild animals.

"In wild bird populations, it's extremely doubtful that you would immunize any substantial portion of the population," he said.

Some vaccines have been attempted on birds, but none has had good success, Burgett said.

However, he said vaccines could be important in protecting captive populations, such as the nene. "That would be the target species I'd work on first," he said, estimating the population at about 1,200 to 1,500.

Dr. Duane Gubler, director of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, said a vaccine was used to protect the endangered California condor in 2002 when West Nile was moving into that state.

Not many birds were left, and wildlife officials knew where they were, said Gubler, former director of the Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Disease at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The California Department of Natural Resources and CDC "decided it was worth the gamble to immunize them," and they were collected and immunized with a DNA vaccine developed by the CDC, Gubler said. None died of West Nile virus, he added.

He said Hawaii Biotech's vaccine "by all accounts is a very safe vaccine." To use it effectively would require collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state Department of Land and Natural Resources, he said.