# 910
Finding a vaccine for the next pandemic is the holy grail of influenza researchers. But creating an effective vaccine isn't enough. We need production capacity, and right now, we don't have that.
Today, if everything goes right, we can produce enough vaccine in a year's time to inoculate perhaps 10% of the world's population.
I'm thrilled countries are doing vaccine research. But we need production facilities.
And we need them yesterday.
June 20 2007 at 10:11AM
Vietnam plans to start its first human trial of a locally-made H5N1 bird flu vaccine as early as next month, using 20 to 30 volunteers, health officials said.
The drug trial, to be carried out with United States government technical assistance, will be the latest of several global efforts to develop a vaccine for mass production, with research also going on in the US, Europe and Asia.
The news comes as a new wave of bird flu sweeping Vietnam has killed a 20-year-old man, infected four other people and triggered more than 100 poultry outbreaks nationwide since last month.
"Preparations for the clinical test of a human vaccine have been basically completed," said Nguyen Tran Hien, director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) in Hanoi.
"Twenty to 30 volunteers will be chosen to test an H5N1 vaccine produced in Vietnam."
Hien said he expected testing to start as early as next month, pending health ministry approval, with the trial expected to wrap up next year.
In the tests, subjects would not be exposed to H5N1 - the viral strain that has killed 191 people worldwide since 2003 - but would be given the vaccine to look for early evidence of safety and test their antibody response.
US experts would provide technical assistance, said US Health Attache Michael Iademarco, adding Washington had granted one million dollars to Vabiotech, a company spun off from the institute.
