A woman is vaccinated at the Hanoi Center for Preventive Health.

Vietnamese companies will receive influenza A (H1N1) virus samples this week toward enabling mass production of vaccines, according to a seminar held in Hanoi heard Monday.

Tran Thanh Duong, deputy head of the Health Ministry’s Bureau of Preventive Health and Environment, warned of a possible outbreak of the virus, also known as swine flu, in Vietnam.

He also said that the coexistence of different strains of viruses could produce a new strain of the H5 bird flu virus that would be far more dangerous.

The best way to combat both kinds of flu is to produce vaccines for domestic use, he said at the seminar.

The seminar was organized jointly by the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative office and the US Embassy in Vietnam.

The preventive health bureau informed the seminar that an average of 1.6-1.7 million people in Vietnam contracted normal influenza every year, between one and three cases of which were fatal. All four cases of bird flu H5N1 infection detected in 2009 have died.

Nguyen Thu Van, director of the Company for Vaccines and Biological Production No. 1 (VABIOTECH), said the company would receive 5-6 samples of H1N1 virus from foreign companies through facilitation by the WHO.

The first sample would arrive this week, she added.

“The company is also expected to produce vaccines against the H5N1 bird flu virus,” she noted.

Le Van Hiep, director of the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC), said they were improving the production of vaccines against bird flu and are scheduled to produce vaccines against influenza A (H1N1).

VABIOTECH, IVAC and the Pasteur Institute in Ho Chi Minh City are the country’s only facilities currently producing bird flu vaccines.

Two more cases

A 39-year-old person and an 11-year old child on the same flight as four other patients detected last Saturday tested positive for the H1N1 virus, raising the total number of cases thus far in the country to 15, the Health Ministry said Monday.

The two latest cases arrived at Tan Son Nhat International Airport at 11:30 p.m. last Friday on flight UA869 from the US, which transited in Hong Kong.

Health authorities have reported that of 293 passengers on the flight, 210 have addresses in HCMC. The city’s Health Department has managed to trace 185 and is looking for the rest to encourage preventive measures.

The health department reported Sunday that two more of the city’s initial three flu patients had recovered and been discharged from hospitals.

The HCMC Health Department Monday warned of hospitals being overloaded with the rising number of people being quarantined after arriving with high temperatures, Vietnam News Agency reported.

The department instructed Pham Ngoc Thach Hospital to set aside 50 beds for people with suspected symptoms. Earlier, three hospitals had been tasked with preparing the quarantine facilities – the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Children Hospital No. 1 and Children Hospital No. 2.

Source: Thanh Nien