Hawaii Biotech Inc. said it has completed human trials using healthy subjects in a multiple dose safety study of its West Nile virus vaccine.

Elliot Parks, Hawaii Biotech president and chief executive officer, said preliminary safety results and immunologic data from the 24 subjects treated with three doses of the vaccine will be available early in 2009. Complete results are expected to be announced by third quarter of 2009.

The vaccine is nonreplicating and designed to be safer than live-attenuated vaccines.

West Nile virus, carried by birds and spread by mosquitoes, can cause serious, life-altering and even fatal disease.

Once infected, an individual can pass the disease through blood transfusion, organ transplant, via the uterus and by breast-feeding, even without showing any symptoms.

There is no existing vaccine for human use.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cases of West Nile virus infections in humans have been reported in all states except Hawai'i, Alaska and Maine.

West Nile virus has been reported in Europe, West and Central Asia, Oceania, Africa, the Middle East and, since 1999, in North America.

Since it entered the United States, there are some 25,000 cases on record, and more than 1,000 deaths.

Hawaii Biotech said it expects to start additional studies on the vaccine's ability to provoke an immune response, and the safety of the vaccine, in mid-2009.