Kazakh Researchers Working on Bird Flu Vaccine

ALMATY. March 21 (Interfax-Kazakhstan) – Kazakhstan is working to develop a bird flu vaccine.

“The farming research institute in Otar is developing the vaccine in Kazakhstan,” spokesman for the Institute of Virusology Marat Sayatov told a Tuesday news conference in Almaty. He did not disclose preliminary results of the work.

On Monday Health Minister Yerbolat Dosayev during question time in parliament said that at the present stage it is more advisable for Kazakhstan to import the vaccine than develop it because “producing it is a very lengthy process.” However, in his opinion, in the future the vaccine will be developed at the national Center for Biotechnologies to be opened in Astana in the next two years.

The bird flu virus was discovered in a dead swan on the coast of the Caspian Sea in Mangistau region. It was the first registered case of bird flu in Kazakhstan this year.

In August-September last year the first bird flu cases in poultry were registered in Pavlodar, Karaganda, Akmola and North Kazakhstan regions.