Vietnam starts human trials for bird flu vaccine

By Grant McCool

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has started clinical trials for developing a human vaccine for the H5N1 virus, researchers said on Thursday in the Southeast Asian country that has recorded 52 deaths from bird flu.

Eleven volunteers, all researchers, received their second dosage of the trial vaccine on Thursday inside spotlessly-clean medical rooms of a company run by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi.

Dr Nguyen Tuyet Nga, the epidemiologist and virologist heading the clinical trial, said researchers were using the highly-pathogenic strain of H5N1 taken from humans in 2004 in Vietnam and known as VN1194.

The strain is being studied worldwide by scientists in their quest for a vaccine for the bird flu virus that has killed 238 people globally out of 376 confirmed cases since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

"I think this is complicated but very important work and we have some support from outside experts," Nga said. "We will test it for cross-protection in a later clinical trial but not now."

She said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization (WHO), a United Nations agency, had helped with project development, but there was no foreign pharmaceutical partner.

The dosages for the clinical trial range from 3.75 micrograms to 45 micrograms per dose and two doses 28 days apart, Nga said. She said there were no boosters planned for the trial.

"We'll see how long protection lasts," Nga said after receiving a dosage and administering it to other volunteers wearing white or green medical coats and blue surgical caps at the company known as Vabiotech.