Scientists Seek Vaccine Against Virus in Babies

SANTA BARBARA —  Scientists from North America, Europe and the Soviet Union have joined forces to find a vaccine for a virus that is a leading cause of respiratory illness in babies.

The goal, said Dr. Craig Pringle, chairman of a World Health Organization committee coordinating the effort, is to use the new technology of genetic engineering.

The virus, called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), has been a major challenge to researchers since it was first isolated in 1956, Pringle said in an interview. His committee is holding a three-day meeting on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara, where the American Society for Virology’s annual meeting ended Thursday.

According to Pringle, who is a virologist at the University of Warwick in England, and Dr. Yuri Pervikov, a member of the World Health virology section in Geneva, between 1% and 3% of all children under a year old are hospitalized annually because of RSV.

Elderly people, especially those in nursing homes, also are susceptible to RSV. The virus infected at least 40 patients at a Los Angeles-area nursing home early this year.

An attempt a few years ago to control the virus with a vaccine failed when it was discovered that the vaccine did not protect children and made any subsequent infection worse, according to Pringle.

“A few years ago I would have said a vaccine is a long way off,” Pringle said. “But research is now proceeding rapidly. It (a vaccine) may be only a few years off.”

Recombinant-DNA technology makes it feasible to develop a vaccine that uses only specific components on the outer coating of the virus to provide immunity. The old RSV vaccine--like other vaccines in use today--was made from viruses that had been “killed” by a special chemical process.

According to Pringle, the original RSV vaccine failed because the chemical process also destroyed an element of the virus that is essential for producing protective immunity.