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| Vietnam aims to produce its own measles vaccine |
| 04-JUL-2009 Intellasia | Bernama |
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| 4 Jul, 2009 - 7:00:00 AM |
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Vietnam's first made measles vaccine will be used in the National Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI), director of Research and Production of Vaccines and Biology Centre (POLYVAC) Nguyen Dang Hien said.
Quoting Nguyen, the Vietnam news agency reported that the locally made vaccine would enable Vietnam, to take the initiatives in disease prevention.
Nguyen said that it is expected that the $20 million-facility, which is conformed to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) of the World Health Organization (WHO), would be able to produce 7.5 million doses of measles vaccine, when it is in full production.
The vaccine is being produced by the Centre for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biology (POLYVAC) with assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).
"Each shot of the vaccine costs about VND5,000 (US$0.28)," he said.
He added that: "About 1.3 million dose of measles vaccine will be provided to EPI this year, and between 4.5-5 million doses from then on under a contract between POLYVAC and the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology."
The technical cooperation project has been conducted between Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) and POLYVAC since July 2006 with technical support from the Kitasato Research Centre for Biology.
In November 2007, the first three batches (equivalent to 300,000 doses) were successfully produced, matching all WHO technical requirements.
"Vietnam has been implementing its expanded programme for immunisation with 10 types of vaccines but until now, the measles vaccine was the only one that could not be produced domestically," Nguyen explained.
Therefore, Vietnam has had to import its measles vaccine with support from the State budget and donations from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/news_lite.php?id=422681
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