Search For ’Flu Vaccine

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30470, 18 June 1964, Page 13

Search For ’Flu Vaccine

t.V Z Press Assn.—CopvrioMl CANBERRA, June 17.

A virologist at the Australian National University hopes to produce within five years a vaccine to combat all types of influenza.

He is Professor S. Fazekas de St Groth, professor of virology in the Department of Microbiology, the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the university.

Professor Fazekas came to Australia from Hungary in 1947. For the last two and a half years he has been concentrating on the influenza virus.

In an interview yesterday he said he believed no-one rise had made so many extensive tests with the virus He said a vaccine for all influenza would be a vital step towards a cure for the common cold.

Howtver. study of the influenza virus was about 30 years ahead of study of the common cold virus. “Australi. can expect another influenza epidemic

next year,” he said. "Australians become susceptible to the virus about every three years as a mutation in the virus takes place.” Influenza kept recurring because of the way it reacted to an anti-body. Meanwhile, it is reported in Hobart that a major outbreak of influenza has hit Southern Tasmania. Doctors said that up to 25 per cent of the-population of . Hobart had been affected. Absenteeism in schools and industry is high. A survey showed that 25 per cent of Hobart's schoolchildren had been absent from school in the last week.