China starts H5N1 vaccine production
China to produce H5N1 human vaccine, as Vietnam announces trials
Beijing: A Chinese drug maker has been given the go-ahead to begin large-scale production of a human H5N1 bird flu vaccine after clinical trials showed it was safe and effective.
The news comes as Vietnam announced it had also started clinical trials for developing its own vaccine.
The vaccine being produced in China by Sinovac Biotech uses an inactivated whole H5N1 virus, and was jointly developed with China's Centre for Disease Control.
Meanwhile, 11 volunteers in Vietnam – all researchers – received their second dose of the trial vaccine on Thursday at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi.
An eventual vaccine to protect people against a flu pandemic can only be made around five months after the start of such a disaster, when the culprit virus strain has been identified.
In March the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline said a vaccine it designed to protect people against H5N1 may be effective in warding off a few different sub-types of the virus.
