Bird flu vaccine passes another crucial test

CHINA yesterday announced phase two success in its bird flu vaccine clinical trials conducted by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and a Beijing drug maker.

A third phase will be carried out - vaccines must pass three phases of clinical trials before they are released on to the market.

The Chinese-developed vaccine creates anti-bodies against the virus and produces "no serious side effects," said scientists involved in the second-phrase clinical trials carried out by the center and Sinovac Biotech, a Beijing-based pharmaceutical company.

The trial also determined the proper dose of the injected vaccine and the best method for administration.

Zhang Jiansan, vice-general manager of Sinovac Biotech, said the second phase of clinical tests was carried out from September to November after permission to stage human clinical trials for the vaccine was granted by the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration.

A total of 402 people aged from 18 to 60 years took the test, Xinhua news agency reported.

Test results showed that the vaccine reached international standards and performed well in the human body. None of the test subjects suffered serious negative reactions, Xinhua said.

Zhang said test subjects of different ages were given different doses of the vaccine and this result was also positive, adding that the vaccine could offers several choices of treatment for victims suffering from the flu.

"We could control the dosage and the immunization procedure for the vaccine during the second phase of clinical tests and this provided us with effective scientific methods to combat this highly infective influenza," Zhang said.

China is also capable of producing bird flu vaccine for human use "in appropriate quantities," Zhang added.

Chin's first human infection case of bird flu was reported in Hong Kong in 1997 and overnight the disease became an international epidemic. Up to now, the world has seen 340 human victims of bird flu of whom 209 died.

The World Health Organization has estimated that up to 2.3 million people in developed countries may go into hospital and 280,000 may die if a serious outbreak occurs.

Founded in 2001, Sinovac, known in China as the Beijing Kexing Bioproducts Limited Company, focuses on manufacturing and marketing vaccines and related products for infectious diseases.