SB's Infanrix Shows Enhanced Efficacy In Major NIAID Studies

The efficacy of Infanrix, SmithKline Beecham's new acellular pertussis vaccine, was confirmed in a land-mark, placebo-controlled clinical trial carried out by the US National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, conducted in Italy and Sweden and involving a total of 25,000 children.

Until recently, vaccination has typically been with classical combined diphtheria (D), tetanus (T) and whole-cell pertussis (Pw) vaccines, commonly associated with a number of side effects, SB points out. New acellular pertussis (DTPa) vaccines, it says, have been shown to cause significantly fewer side effects than whole-cell vaccines but until now have not been demonstrated to be effective for primary vaccinations in such a large group.

In the three-year Italian study, the vaccines used were Infanrix, Biocine-Sclavo's three-component DTPa vaccine, Connaught Labs' DTPw vaccine and Biocine-Sclavo's DT vaccine. In the Swedish study, also of three years' duration, the products used were SB's two-component DTPa vaccine containing pertussis toxoid and filamentous hemagglutinin, Pasteur-Merieux-Connaught's five-component DTPa vaccine, Connaught's DTPw vaccine and Swedish Bacteriological Labs' DT vaccine.