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Vietnam to test human-use H5N1 vaccines
HANOI, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is going to test human-use vaccines against bird flu virus strain H5N1 on 20-30 volunteers, according to local newspaper Pioneer on Tuesday.
The future test of the vaccines, produced by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, is to check their safety and immunization, the newspaper quoted Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the institute in Hanoi capital, as saying.
A dose of locally-made H5N1 vaccines is estimated to cost around 30,000 Vietnamese dong (nearly 1.9 U.S. dollars). The institute's initial vaccine production capacity is able to serve some one million people, an institute official told Xinhua recently on condition of anonymity.
Since mid-November 2005, Vietnam has reported five human cases of bird flu infections, of whom one has died, two from the northern provinces of Vinh Phuc and Thanh Hoa have been discharged from hospital, and two from the northern provinces of Ha Nam and Thai Nguyen have still been under treatment at the city-based Tropical Disease Hospital. All of the bird flu patients have either had direct contact with or eaten dead fowls.
Vietnam is strengthening surveillance systems at bird flu hot-spots, equipping hospitals nationwide with more respirators, and stockpiling over 20 million tablets of Tami flu. Bird flu, starting to strike the country in December 2003, has hit 18 of its localities since early May.
Vietnam's Health Ministry said the World Health Organization has agreed in principle to grant 2.5 million dollars to the country in order to aid it in producing human vaccines for the disease.
In their recent joint research, the city-based hospital and Oxford University have been able to isolate and recreate single cells from the blood of bird flu survivors that may lead to a viable commercial human vaccine.
HANOI, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is going to test human-use vaccines against bird flu virus strain H5N1 on 20-30 volunteers, according to local newspaper Pioneer on Tuesday.
The future test of the vaccines, produced by Vietnam's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, is to check their safety and immunization, the newspaper quoted Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the institute in Hanoi capital, as saying.
A dose of locally-made H5N1 vaccines is estimated to cost around 30,000 Vietnamese dong (nearly 1.9 U.S. dollars). The institute's initial vaccine production capacity is able to serve some one million people, an institute official told Xinhua recently on condition of anonymity.
Since mid-November 2005, Vietnam has reported five human cases of bird flu infections, of whom one has died, two from the northern provinces of Vinh Phuc and Thanh Hoa have been discharged from hospital, and two from the northern provinces of Ha Nam and Thai Nguyen have still been under treatment at the city-based Tropical Disease Hospital. All of the bird flu patients have either had direct contact with or eaten dead fowls.
Vietnam is strengthening surveillance systems at bird flu hot-spots, equipping hospitals nationwide with more respirators, and stockpiling over 20 million tablets of Tami flu. Bird flu, starting to strike the country in December 2003, has hit 18 of its localities since early May.
Vietnam's Health Ministry said the World Health Organization has agreed in principle to grant 2.5 million dollars to the country in order to aid it in producing human vaccines for the disease.
In their recent joint research, the city-based hospital and Oxford University have been able to isolate and recreate single cells from the blood of bird flu survivors that may lead to a viable commercial human vaccine.