The World Health Organization (WHO)is willing to help Thailand develop a vaccine to prevent the spread of bird flu to humans, said a WHO official.

Samples of bird flu virus are needed for vaccine producing. But so far, the Thai government has not deliver such samples to the organization, Somchai Peerapakorn, a WHO specialist based in Thailand, was quoted by Bangkok Post as saying on Wednesday.

"We know the Livestock Department has obtained virus samples from several provinces. The vaccine will be useful for protecting the public against the virus," he said.

Just one day before, Kamuan Ungchusak, director of the Bureau of Epidemiology, said Thailand will dispatch local H5N1 strain of bird flu virus to the WHO within two months, adding this would allow the organization to produce vaccines capable of combating virus strain found in the country.

Bird flu vaccine studies have been carried out in Thailand by two separate research teams: a technical working group under his committee and the Public Health Ministry's research team, said Kamuan.

Vaccinations will be administered to people prone to infection,such as poultry farmers, slaughterhouse workers, livestock and health officials handling the outbreak, and children in rural areas where chickens were raised. Eight people have been killed during the first round of bird flu outbreak in Thailand early thisyear.

But experts are still worrying that vaccinations may cause a more lethal outbreak if they trigger the virus to mutate and turn poultry into virus carriers.

The WHO is expected to complete vaccine production and supply affected countries by the end of 2005.

Source: Xinhua