News Release

For Immediate Release -- February 24, 2012

Adenovirus Vaccine Fielding Update: Four Months of Use

(Fort Detrick, Md.) - The U.S. military began administering Adenovirus Type 4 and Type 7 Vaccine, Live, Oral (Adenovirus Vaccine) to recruits in basic training over a four-week period that began the week of Oct. 24, 2011.

Since October, the manufacturer has shipped 100,800 doses of Adenovirus Vaccine to the nine basic training sites, and the Services have administered approximately 50,000 doses of vaccine. Since January 2012, essentially all basic trainees present at the training sites have been immunized with Adenovirus Vaccine, said Dr. Clifford Snyder, Jr., product manager for Adenovirus Vaccine in the Pharmaceutical Systems Project Management Office of the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity.

According to Snyder, while several pathogens are known to cause Febrile Respiratory Illness years of medical research in the basic training setting have shown that if trainees are immunized with an effective flu vaccine, Adenovirus Type 4 has been the major pathogen associated with FRI. Thus, one can expect that administration of an effective Adenovirus Vaccine containing a Type 4 component will lead to a marked reduction in the rate of FRI.

The published Naval Health Research Center data show a marked reduction in the FRI rate beginning in mid-Nov. 2011. The amount of the reduction is about 75%. In addition, the number of specimens taken from FRI patients that are positive for disease-causing Adenovirus Type 4 has dropped to very low levels. According to Snyder, the striking reduction in the FRI rate is almost certainly attributable to the administration of Adenovirus Vaccine.

"The results are undeniable when you look at the numbers," said Lt. Cmdr. Carolyn Winningham, Lovell Federal Health Care Center preventive medicine officer. "The vaccine is fast, effective and safe. At the end of the day, our job is about keeping U.S. Navy recruits healthy and in training. So, for us, the adenovirus vaccine has been a huge success."

The Lovell FHCC provides care to the trainees at Naval Station Great Lakes.

Snyder put this achievement in perspective by stating, "Hundreds of people have worked hard to bring us to the point that senior leaders in the Department of Defense envisioned about 11 years ago, namely the time when military leaders no longer need to worry about the threat posed to military recruits by Adenovirus Types 4 and 7."

###