China promotes bird flu vaccine for poultry

Asian Economic News, Feb 9, 2004

BEIJING, Feb. 3 Kyodo

Chinese authorities are promoting a poultry vaccine to control the country's expanding bird flu outbreak, but health experts caution costs may be prohibitive and add a vaccine designed this early cannot fight a constantly mutating virus.

On Friday the official Xinhua News Agency quoted a Beijing Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences expert as saying China had launched research into a poultry vaccination that could ''effectively control'' the flu's spread.

And Monday, Xinhua quoted an Agriculture Ministry animal husbandry expert as saying Chinese labs had researched a ''hundred percent effective'' vaccine.

The statements came as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called prevention a priority during trips to Maanshan, in Anhui Province, where the flu is suspected, and Wuxue, in Hubei Province, where a case was confirmed.

By Tuesday, the government had reported three confirmed and 11 suspected cases, mostly in the rural south. The first case was announced Jan. 27 in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region near hard-hit Vietnam. All reported flu cases in China are in birds, not humans.

''With the production of the vaccine and people's experience in prevention, including avian influenza, everything can be prevented and controlled,'' the Xinhua report said.

Some healthcare experts in China say a vaccine available now would not work because the 100-year-old bird flu virus keeps changing. A series of vaccines developed over two to three months could work, said Chen Yigu, a pathologist with Zhongshan University in Guangzhou.

''I think generally it is effective, but this virus keeps changing,'' Chen cautioned.

A Jan. 4 report in the British magazine ''New Scientist'' says China has vaccinated poultry since the Hong Kong bird flu outbreak in 1997, but improper vaccinations may have allowed the disease to return unseen last year.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry rejected magazine's report as ''irresponsible.''

A new vaccine would only work in areas with no cases yet, said a Western diplomat who specializes in healthcare. He noted most veteran poultry farmers already have an immunity, which is what a vaccine would provide, and that it might be more economical to vaccinate children than chickens.

If farmers pay for the vaccines themselves, he added, it would be ''really expensive.''

Other experts also cautioned on the cost question, although none would speculate on the cost per chicken.

The government should pay at least part of it, said Chen. Farmers are among the poorest people in China, sometimes unable to afford running water or toilets.

''It's likely to be an expensive process,'' said Robert Pollard, managing director of the ISIS medical research firm in Beijing and Shanghai. ''Farmers might prefer to take a chance.''

The World Health Organization, which does not recommend vaccines but believes they could work in theory, wants to know more about China's vaccine production process, ''quality assurance'' and follow-up measures, said WHO China spokesman Roy Wadia.