A pair of reports make the potential losses from a killer bird H5N1 flu pandemic look a lot smaller. First off, at the US military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences some researchers have discovered that plasma taken from recovered flu victims in 1918 reduced the fatality rate of others infected by the killer 1918 flu.

USU faculty have discovered that a treatment for the Spanish Influenza pandemic may also be effective for current Avian Influenza patients. Navy Capt. Edward Kilbane, Army Col. Jeffrey Jackson and Navy Lt. Cmdr. Thomas Luke, are all alumni and faculty of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU). They, along with retired Navy physician, Capt. Stephen Hoffman, published their research Tuesday, Aug. 29, in the online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The four researchers analyzed medical literature reported during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 to 1920. They found that transfusions with blood products from Spanish Flu survivors may have reduced the risk of death in seriously ill Spanish Flu patients.

The meta-analysis of these data show that treatment of patients in 1918 with convalescent whole blood, plasma or serum obtained from humans who had recovered from Spanish Influenza resulted in a reduced mortality of seriously ill patients by 50 percent.

If antibodies extracted from patients who recover from H5N1 avian flu would work against H5N1 in other people then each infected person who recovers could produce enough antibodies each week to help several people.

Another report argues that by switching to use of cell cultures to grow pandemic flu vaccine enough vaccine could be produced in the United States to treat the entire population of the US in a few months.

In a study led by University of Michigan professor of chemical and biomedical engineering Henry Wang and doctoral student Lyle Lash, researchers examined the economics of producing egg versus cell culture vaccines in the event of a flu pandemic. They found that training personnel to make cell culture vaccines in existing facilities is the only way to make enough doses to cover the United States in a short time without requiring huge capital investments to build new dedicated flu vaccine cell culture facilities.

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The reasons to shift from egg to cell culture production are time and capacity, both of which are critical factors in responding to a pandemic, researchers said. It takes much longer to compile millions of hen eggs than it would to grow up existing cell lines from frozen vials, Lash said. While cell culture has a lower yield than egg culture, there is more existing capacity for cell culture than for inoculating and processing eggs.

"Based on existing dosages, we'd have enough doses in about 3 to 4 months to cover the U.S. with the system we propose," Lash said. Currently, it would take six months to make 250 to 300 million doses of pandemic flu vaccine for the United States. "What we're proposing could make 600 million doses in four months."

If you could manage to isolate yourself and your family for a few months starting at the very beginning of a pandemic then you could come out after those few months and get vaccinated. Also, plasma treatments would become available.

This all reminds me that I've yet to stockpile N95 and N100 face masks. They'd be helpful for occasional trips to the store. Otherwise I'll totally isolate myself if a killer pandemic hits.