Monday, October 15, 2007

Vietnam Receives Vaccine Technology


# 1171

 

It's been a thankfully slow news weekend, with most of the wire reports being rehashes of earlier stories. 

 

Idul Fitri, the great feast that marks the end of Ramadan, should be drawing to a close in Indonesia.  We should know in a day or so if the news is really this quiet.

 

In the meantime Vietnam is gearing up to produce a human H5N1 vaccine with help from the WHO.

 

 

 

Vietnam receives H5N1 human-vaccine production technology

 

17:23, October 15, 2007Vietnam is receiving technology and equipment for producing vaccines against bird flu virus strain H5N1 for humans, local newspaper Vietnam Agriculture reported Monday.

 


The equipment and technology worth 2.7 million U.S. dollars funded by the World Health Organization are being handed over to Vietnam's Nha Trang Vaccine Institute.

 

The equipment installation for the institute will be completed in the early second quarter of 2008, to serve the vaccine production in the early fourth quarter of the year. H5N1 vaccines for humans to be produced by the institute are expected to be qualified for being exported.

 

The institute started to produce the vaccines on a trial basis late 2005, and they have been tested successfully on animals.

 

Vietnam has detected seven bird flu patients from the five northern provinces of Vinh Phuc, Thai Nguyen, Thanh Hoa, Ha Nam and Ha Tay since May 10, of whom four died, according to the Preventive Medicine Department under the Vietnamese Health Ministry.

Source:Xinhua