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GENEVA - The World Health Organization (WHO) will step up its efforts to develop a vaccine against Avian influenza, known as the ¡°bird flu,¡± in order to stem the rapid spread of the epidemic, a top official of the organization said Monday.
In an interview with the Yonhap News Agency, Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the WHO, said that the international body would soon contact flu-vaccine manufacturing companies and discuss ways to develop a vaccine. The project will take about six months, he predicted.
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Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO).
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Lee said WHO is particularly concerned about the possibility that a flu patient might get infected with the virus and generates a new variant that could be transmitted to humans.
He noted that the bird flu is more fearful than SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) transmitting only through physical contacts because the virus can be spread to wider areas through migratory birds.
A WHO official said that the organization secured the prototype strain of the bird flu virus from the sample of the H5N1 virus, which is currently active in South Korea, Japan and Vietnam, by mobilizing international cooperative networks such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and research institutes in Hong Kong and Japan.
In South Korea, the National Institute of Health is involved in the project by delivering the sample virus to the CDC and sharing information about it, the official said.
The official said, however, that the bird flu virus discovered in Thailand and Taiwan is H5N2, a different strain from one found in South Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
According to vaccine experts, the bird flu vaccine project will take at least several months because the vaccine will have to undergo safety and efficacy experiments on animals ahead of clinical tests on human bodies.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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