WHO says existing vaccine little use against new flu

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation said on Friday that tests had shown the current seasonal vaccine against flu would have little effect against the new H1N1 strain.

"There is very little chance that the seasonal vaccine ... will be effective against this particular virus," Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO's initiative for vaccine research, told a news conference.

"We have no doubt making a successful vaccine is possible," she added, saying that it would still take between four and six months for the first doses to be available.

She said samples needed to make a vaccine would be ready to send to manufacturers by mid to late May.

Worldwide, 13 countries have confirmed cases of the virus that has killed as many as 176 people. Only one person has died outside Mexico: a toddler from Mexico who travelled to the United States.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn, Stephanie Nebehay and Laura Macinnis, Writing by Richard Meares)