A first round of swine flu vaccine trials from Australia reveal the vaccine to protect against the H1N1 virus works in just one dose.

The news comes as a surprise and a relief to scientists and public health officials who feared that two doses or more might be required to protect people from the virus, and that would leave not enough vaccine supply to reach everyone who would need it.

The preliminary results, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that 97 percent of adults who got one 15 microgram dose developed antibodies to protect from the virus after 21 days, and in some cases within 10 days. The trials were done in Australia by vaccine maker CSL, Ltd., which is licensed to provide millions of doses of the vaccine here in the United States.

This trial is separate from the National Institutes of Health-ordered tests on adults and children being done here at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development and a handful of other academic centers nationwide. The preliminary results of those tests, however, are expected this afternoon and reveal that the vaccine tested here could also work in just one dose, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Associated Press.

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