Swine flu vaccine trial under way

The world's first clinical trial of a swine flu vaccine for the general population has started in Adelaide.

Some 240 volunteers will be injected with the vaccine, produced by biotechnology company CSL, in the trial at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The federal government has ordered 21 million doses of the vaccine for use in Australia, should it be proven.

CSL said the trials would take about seven months to complete but expects enough initial results for the government to plan distribution from October.

CSL's director of research and development, Andrew Cuthbertson, said the company was confident the vaccine would protect people from the H1N1 flu.

"We have a specific vaccine that we believe will be able to protect millions of people against this new H1N1 flu," Dr Cuthbertson told reporters in Adelaide on Wednesday.

"But what we have to do before this is made generally available is do some appropriate testing.

"We are pretty clear what the usual dose and what the schedule of vaccination is.

"But because this is a novel strain of influenza and sometimes we can get results which are a little different from the normal season vaccine, we are going to be running a trial to confirm the dose.

"I would certainly be confident that the safety profile of this vaccine will be very similar to our normal seasonal vaccines."

Once proven, it would be up to the federal government to determine its use, he said.

- AAP