BadDog, I'm an aero engineer, not a biologist. As I understand the science, vaccines are essentially versions of a virus modified such that they can not replicate normally. ie: The vaccine gives you the virus, but in a (relatively) harmless form, so your body can adapt to generate antibodies against it over a longer timespan than the virus would normally allow (before it killed you).
So yes, they can't make a true vaccine until they have a sample of the exact strain. I gather from news articles that researchers are trying to mutate H5N1 by exposing it to common human-to-human flu viruses so they can create a strain from which they can create a vaccine. (Bad science fiction story if that strain escapes the lab prematurely.)
It also seems logical to me that someone could develop a vaccine from a close (though not h-to-h) strain that trains the human body's immune system to fight the symptoms of eventually h-to-h strain.
But as disclaimed, I'm not a biologist, and do know that viruses are a game of interlocking puzzle pieces. If the pieces don't fit, nothing happens. ie: Why the current strain only kills birds and not humans, other mammals, and reptiles.
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