Typed out by a friend in Thailand, in their main paper:
Quote:
| BIRD FLU / PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS Deal struck to conduct vaccine tests on people APINYA WIPATAYOTIN & PIYAPORN WONGRUANG The Public Health Ministry and the world's third-largest pharmaceutical firm, sanofi pasteur, have reached an initial agreement to jointly conduct trials of an avian flu vaccine on humans early next year. The vaccine trial would be conducted on children aged six months to 18 years because the young were more vulnerable to a flu pandemic than adults, said Tawee Chotpitayasunondh, a member of the ministry's human avian flu study panel. The ministry had been negotiating with the firm after the deal on a vaccine trial against the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus with Japan was aborted last month. Speaking at a press conference on the sidelines of the meeting on Influenza Pandemic Preparedness held in Pattaya, Dr Tawee said further study must be done on developing an H5N1 vaccine for humans as the avian flu virus had various forms and a vaccine formula that was effective in Vietnam and Thailand might not be in China and Indonesia. Sunate Chuenkitmongkol, medical director of sanofi pasteur, said the company hoped it would be able to launch H5N1 vaccine trials on humans early next year. The vaccine trials on children would take around six months to a year, she said, adding that the project was pending approval from the national committee on human vaccine trial ethics. The Public Health Ministry and the firm was also negotiating a benefit-sharing agreement. If approved, Thailand would be the first country in Southeast Asia to conduct H5N1 vaccine trials on children. ''The vaccine trials aim to find proper doses of the vaccine to help the body to generate immunity against the disease. The trials will also let us know proper timing for vaccinations,'' she said. Meanwhile, caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday instructed health and livestock officials not to lower their guard against bird flu. Speaking at a meeting on Bird Flu Preparedness at Government House, Mr Thaksin said he did not want to see bird flu return now the country had successfully controlled it and had earned recognition from the international community. The country had been free of bird flu outbreak for 239 days, as of yesterday. Caretaker Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said the ministry had instructed its officials to conduct nationwide bird flu surveillance 'X-rays' more frequently. Yukol Limlamthong, Livestock Development Department chief, said manuals on bird flu prevention had been distributed to people, but they had failed to follow the instructions. He was referring to a recent report that villagers from Sam Ngam district in the northern province of Phichit ate dead chickens, which died of unknown causes. Twenty villagers were being monitored for signs of illness on Tuesday. |
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