AUSTRALIAN researchers are leading a world-first trial in which babies and toddlers will be exposed to household dust, grass clippings and cat hair in an attempt to turn a treatment for asthma into a vaccine.
Two hundred children from Perth, Melbourne and New York will be administered a daily oral vaccine consisting of tiny drops of common allergens in a 12-month trial developed by researchers at Fiona Stanley's Perth-based Telethon Institute for Child Health.
The trial will receive $5 million from the US National Institutes of Health, but is expected to cost up to twice as much to complete when it includes children from Germany and Sweden.
The vaccine - which aims to stimulate immune responses and prevent children developing asthma triggered by allergies - has been used successfully in animal trials and to treat adults who already have asthma.
Peter Sly, who said the trial was the result of 15 years' research at the Telethon institute, was confident the treatment would prove a success as a vaccine.
Asthma affects up to 40 per cent of Australian children and is the single most common reason for children being admitted to hospital. "This is designed to educate the immune system to ignore these things in our environment that should be unimportant to us but which cause so much allergy and contribute to asthma," Professor Sly said.
He recognized it could be difficult to attract families to the trial, which would monitor children for up to five years and required daily administration of the vaccine.
He said the catastrophe last month when six men taking part in a immunology drug trial at a London hospital became critically ill could not have come at a worse time, but assured parents there had been no serious reaction to the drops being used to treat - rather than prevent - asthma over the past two decades. |
 "When you have a disease, taking treatment for it is difficult enough. When you don't have the disease, taking the treatment to prevent it is even more difficult," he said. "We know that this is going to be a tough ask."
For Perth father Kristian Mackay - a third-generation asthma sufferer - the trial is an important opportunity to give his 21-month-old son Xavier the chance to live his life free from the condition.
"I had asthma as a child and I'd rather Xavier not have it at all," Mr Mackay said. "There still are children who die of asthma attacks every year and I'd rather my son not be in the percentage that is likely to happen to."
Xavier's mother, Juliann, said that combined with a family history of asthma, the couple's toddler had suffered skin irritations and bronchitis, which indicated he could be prone to asthma later in life.
Mrs Mackay said she did have some misgivings about the trial but believed it was worth trying to minimise Xavier's chance of developing asthma.
Launching the trial yesterday, West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter said the ground-breaking treatment had the potential to reap enormous medical and economic benefits.
"If we can develop this vaccine there are enormous benefits that can flow - not just to our community but to children all over the world," Mr Carpenter said.
"This fits perfectly with what we are trying to achieve more broadly in Western Australia - the science and innovation end of our economy." |
