Hendra virus researcher, Deborah Middleton, BVSc (Hons), MVSc, PhD, Dipl. VCS, who is leading the Hendra vaccine project at the Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Animal Health Laboratory, provided an update on its progress and the challenges so far, at the Australian Veterinary Association’s national conference in Canberra May 22.

Middleton said the high number of hendra cases reported in 2011 emphasized the need for a vaccine in a bid to eradicate the killer disease.

"The initial flurry of research activity that followed the emergence of the hendra virus in Queensland in 1994 waned somewhat towards the late 1990s after there had been a limited number of cases reported," she explained. "Interest was renewed after the outbreak of the nipah virus in Malaysia in 1999 which was identified as being closely related to the hendra virus, and caused the deaths of hundreds of people.

"Like hendra, nipah virus can be transmitted to humans from animals, and some strains can also be transmitted directly from human-to-human; in Bangladesh, half of reported cases between 2001 and 2008 were due to human-to-human transmission