10.03.2006

An Indonesia-Japan venture said it has created what it believes is a more effective avian influenza vaccine for poultry and hopes to quickly boost production to help nations fight the deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain.
The vaccine is produced using a new production technique called reverse genetics in which an inactivated, genetically modified form of the H5N1 virus is grown in chicken eggs. The strain is A/IPB-SGT/1/2004 with high similarity to the A/Ck/Indonesia/Legok/2004 (H5N1).
Since 2004, Japanese drugmaker Shigeta Animal Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Indonesia's government-backed Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) have worked together to create the vaccine, called bird CLOSE 5.1.
The joint venture company has a factory at the IPB campus in Bogor, about 50 km south of Jakarta, with a production capacity of 180 million dosages a year.