Norwegian Company: “We Can Produce Bird-Flu Vaccine”

Norwegian company Bionor Immuno has claimed it could produce a bird-flu vaccine, which could prevent 80 per cent of sufferers from dying of the disease, in just over a year.

The company, which is based in Skien [town 60 miles/100 kilometres south west of Oslo], has been working on developing an HIV vaccine for several years and believes it can use the same technique for bird flu.

Company director Birger Soerensen told Norwegian radio that it was not necessary to wait until the existing bird-flu virus had mutated into one which could affect humans before development work began.

The company will now present a proposed development project to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

Soerensen said developing the vaccine would cost 10-15m kroner [about 1.5-2.3m dollars] before production began.