Bird flu vaccine 6 months off
2004-01-25 10:13
Bangkok, Thailand - A vaccine for the bird flu rampaging through Asia is more than six months away, a World Health Organisation spokesperson predicted on Sunday, as hard-hit Thailand enlisted hundreds of soldiers to help battle the disease by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of chickens.
Faced with accusations that he covered up the outbreak, Thailand's prime minister said his government had suspected that bird flu had struck his nation a "couple of weeks" ago. But he didn't tell the public because he feared mass panic.
Vietnam and Thailand are the only countries this year where humans have caught the avian flu, with six confirmed deaths in Vietnam and one suspected fatality in Thailand. The virus has affected millions of chickens in six Asian nations and has put the entire region - already worried about Sars - on a health alert.
Recently the WHO raised hopes that a prototype bird flu vaccine would be ready in four weeks' time. But the UN health agency on Sunday said on its web site its fears that the virus would mutate had come true, slowing up work on a vaccine.
"I don't think we're looking at a workable vaccine within six months. That's too late for the influenza season in Asia but it would be available," Peter Cordingley, the WHO spokesperson for the region, said in Manila, Philippines.
"It could be available for next winter's flu season ... It's not promising this year," he added.
Presently human victims have been infected directly from chickens. But scientists fear that the disease might combine with a regular human flu virus, making person-to-person infection possible.
This then could trigger a new human flu pandemic - worse that last year's outbreak severe acute respiratory syndrome that killed more than 700 people.
The WHO has said the strains of bird flu seen this year, in both humans and chickens, have mutated, indicating how adaptable the virus is. Still, no person-to-person transmissions have been reported yet.
"Preliminary results indicate that these viruses are significantly different from other H5N1 (bird flu) strains isolated in Asia in the recent past, thus necessitating the development of a new prototype strain for use in vaccine manufacturing," it said on its Web site.
Governments in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan have ordered mass chicken culls to combat the spread of the virus. Vietnam has slaughtered more than 3 million chickens and Thailand more than 7 million.
Hundreds of Thai soldiers in protective gear were being bused into hardest-hit Suphanburi province to assist in the chicken slaughter.
The outbreak has ravaged Thailand's chicken export industry, particularly small poultry farmers.
Many countries have slapped bans on poultry products from Thailand - the world's fourth largest chicken exporter.
- AP