VietNamNet Bridge – According to the Central Veterinary Diagnosis Centre, as of June 2008, bird flu vaccine produced by Vietnam will be partly used in the national bird flu vaccination programme.

The research and production of bird flu vaccine in Vietnam is conducted by scientists of the Institute for Science and Technology and the Veterinary Institute.

Dr. To Long Thanh, Deputy Director of the Central Veterinary Diagnosis Centre, said that scientists have initially finalilsed the first step, creating a vaccine from an imported virus.

The Veterinary Agency has tested the vaccine on fowls to have the accurate conclusion on the resemblance between vaccine virus types and newly separated virus types from ill fowls in Vietnam.

Based on the testing results, the Veterinary Agency will allow the experimentaly use on a narrow scale and then in a wider scale.

Mr. Thanh said that if everything goes smoothly, around June 2008, locally produced bird flu vaccine can participate in the national bird flu vaccination programme 2007-2008.

The Veterinary Agency is working with the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) on the upgrade of the bird flu vaccine production enterprise.

Vietnam is spending hundreds of billion dong to import H5N1 and H5N2 vaccine, mainly from China, and H5N9 from Italy to vaccinate for fowls. Vietnam plans to import around 500 million doses of the vaccine in 2007-2008. However, in mid-2007, provinces used most of the volume of vaccine imported for the year so the country has to import an additional 200 million doses.

According to Mr. Thanh, this additional import has caused difficulties for Chinese producers because they only produce the vaccine based on contracts already signed with Vietnam.

H.Yen