Indonesia, Egypt to develop bird flu vaccine

JAKARTA: Egyptian vaccine maker Vacsera is looking to team up with an Indonesian company to develop a bird flu vaccine for humans, an Egyptian minister and a company official said late on Wednesday. Indonesia has the world s highest death toll from bird flu with 72 fatalities from the H5N1 virus. A 15-year-old girl tested positive for the virus on Thursday. Egypt has recorded 32 human cases, 13 of them fatal, the highest figures for any country outside Asia. With regard to avian flu, the Egyptian company involved in cooperation for producing or manufacturing a vaccine with Indonesia is Vacsera, Egypt s minister of international cooperation, Fayza Aboulnaga, told a news conference. Vacsera s chief, Salwa Seddik, said the firm had approached Indonesian vaccine maker PT Bio Farma for joint research and development of a vaccine, but did not give details. We have contacted the Indonesian health ministry and Bio Farma. It is at an early stage but we do hope we can start as soon as possible, Seddik told reporters. We don t know until now where the vaccine is going to be produced but we have the facility in Egypt, she said. Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said the government has yet to decide which drug company would be involved. There is no commercially available bird flu vaccine for people but several major drug firms are working on one. In February, Indonesia signed a preliminary agreement with a unit of pharmaceutical firm Baxter International, under which the health ministry s research and development institute would supply the American firm with H5N1 specimens while Baxter would provide technology to help develop a vaccine. Avian flu mainly affects mainly wild birds and poultry, but experts fear that if the H5N1 strain mutated into a form easily transmitted from person to person, it could sweep the world, killing millions. Human deaths have been reported in countries from Asia to the Middle East and Africa, with the global toll approaching 200.