THAILAND: Scientists are just weeks away from designing a human vaccine against the deadly Asian bird flu that has killed 22 people and will take longer and more money to stamp out than previously thought, UN experts said yesterday.
"Our laboratories are working actively on designing a new vaccine. We hope that in a few weeks the design phase will have been completed," Mr Bjorn Melgaard, the WHO representative in Thailand, said at an international meeting in Bangkok.
Officials from 23 Asia-Pacific countries, UN bodies and donors kicked off the three-day emergency meeting with urgent pleas to intensify the fight against the disease.
The virulent H5N1 avian influenza virus has hit seven Asian countries and killed 15 Vietnamese and seven Thais - fuelling fears it could acquire the ability to easily infect humans, who have no immunity.
That has not happened, but Mr Melgaard told the meeting "the conditions in affected countries and elsewhere are ripe for the emergence of just such a pandemic strain of the influenza virus". He said, "A vaccine could be available shortly for vaccine manufacturers to begin small-scale production, so that safety and efficiency studies can be conducted."
It could be another three to six months before a commercial version of the vaccine is widely available.
The virus is proving difficult to stamp out, with new and recurring outbreaks among poultry despite the slaughter of 100 million birds. Japan and Cambodia are the latest countries investigating possible new cases.
"It is clear that the avian flu epidemic is not yet under control," Mr Melgaard said. It took the US two years to wipe out an outbreak in the 1990s. "The threat to human health will last as long as avian influenza persists in the environment," he said.