Southeast Asia actively protects against H5N1

Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam all want to produce avian influenza vaccines as soon as they find an appropriate technology partner to avoid dependence on Western pharmaceutical corporations in the event of a pandemic.

According to Dr. Margaret Chan - leader of the World Health Organization (WHO), currently these types of vaccines are mainly produced from American and European corporations and only reach about 300-400 million doses / year. , very low compared to what is needed in the event of a pandemic.

On April 2-4, in preparation for the worst case scenario, more than 1,000 experts from Southeast Asia, Japan and WHO participated in rapid response training in Singapore. They participated in solving the hypothetical situation that avian influenza outbreaks on people in a fictional area in Cambodia and relief work was carried out from neighboring countries.

A WHO official said the purpose of the training was to test the ability of fast communication among countries in the region and to identify possible obstacles in case of better preparation.

Making chicken at a market in Surabaya (Indonesia).People remain indifferent to bird flu even though Indonesia has become the nation with the most deaths from bird flu.

H.THE