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Thailand Requests Japanese Cooperation on Bird Flu Vaccine Trials

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 06:00 CDT

Text of report by Apinya Wipatayotin, published in English by Thai newspaper Bangkok Post website on 17 October

The Public Health Ministry is planning to conduct a bird flu vaccine trial on humans in the middle of next year. Paijit Warachit, director-general of the Medical Sciences Department, said the ministry had asked for cooperation from Japan's Osaka University to produce a pilot batch of 30,000-100,000 doses of vaccine from a seed sample provided by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The shipment from Japan would be ready by early next year, Dr Paijit said. "We have planned for the H5N1 vaccine trials on people to begin in May 2006," he said. The results of the trials should be ready a year after the completion of the trial. The country was now able to produce a vaccine against H5N1, but only about 100 doses at a time, he said.

The decision to test the vaccine on humans underlines the country's concern over the disease, which many experts believe has the potential to become a global pandemic should the strain mutate into one that could be transmitted from person to person. With winter just around the corner, the government is closely monitoring all areas of the country to ensure bird flu does not re-emerge. It was recently found at two quail farms in Nakhon Pathom Province, and last week they were ordered to be closed by the Livestock Development Department.

"Everything must be speeded up because this is an issue of national security in the area of public health," Dr Paijit said. Bird flu has cost the country about 4.3bn baht in economic damage, in addition to 2.2bn baht compensation that the government paid to farmers for the mass cull of chickens last year. Thailand discovered 17 cases of humans infected with the virus, and 12 people have died from it. Dr Paijit downplayed concerns over the safety of human trials, insisting that safety would be the main priority.

A committee would be set up to be tasked with assessing whether or not the laboratory results proved that it was safe for humans or animals. Everything would have to be carried out in line with stringent clinical practices, he said. "If the trial is successful, we will place an order to begin stockpiling the vaccine. Should an outbreak occur while the trial is still being carried out, we will immediately vaccinate high-risk groups," Dr Paijit said. Many countries are concerned about bird flu and are stockpiling H5N1 vaccine, as well as Oseltamivir or Tamiflu, which are commonly used to treat influenza. Thailand has already stockpiled about 725,000 capsules of Tamiflu.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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