Shanghai Daily news

A woman grimaces as she gets a flu vaccine while other residents wait for their turn at a disease prevention center in Shanghai. Doctors say people needn't rush to get a vaccination as no bird flu infection has been discovered in the city. — Zhang Chi

The Shanghai Institute of Biological Products is testing an avian flu vaccine for humans, which it hopes will be ready for the market in two to three years.

Chen Liesheng, vice director of the institute, said the new vaccine was created based on the human flu with a few changes.

A bird flu outbreak has killed 545 chickens and ducks in a village in central China's Hunan Province in the country's third outbreak of the disease in two weeks.

Hunan authorities destroyed 2,487 other birds in an effort to contain the virus, said the Ministry of Agriculture. The latest outbreak occurred on Saturday in Wantang Village and was confirmed on Tuesday.

A bird flu outbreak last week killed 2,600 chickens and ducks in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Another killed 550 geese in the eastern province of Anhui this week.

There have been no reports of human cases in China.

Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday the Chinese government is taking effective measures to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Wen, who is in Moscow to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting, said that massive culling of domestic poultry was carried out in those affected regions, adding the regions were strictly quarantined and local residents were vaccinated, Xinhua news agency reported.

Vice Premier Hui Liangyu urged all areas and departments concerned to step up control over the deadly epidemic.

He said China is in a season with a high possibility of a bird flu outbreak as birds are making large-scale seasonal migration, Xinhua reported.

He urged local leaders to give top priority to the issue and adopt stricter preventive measures.

In order to prevent a possible bird flu pandemic, poultry farms in Shanghai are stepping up sterilization of birds and workers.

Some farms have vaccinated all their birds and put veterinarians on call in case of infection.

"The sterilization has actually been routine work since last year, when the bird flu broke out in the country," said Wu Ruilong, secretary general of the Shanghai Poultry Trade Association.

All 100,000 poultry at the Shanghai Poultry Breeding Co's three state-level bases have been vaccinated. Workers there have to go through a special entry into the poultry area and change into sterilized suits and shoes.

City residents hoping to store a batch of Tamiflu, a flu medication many countries are stocking up in case of a human pandemic of bird flu, might have trouble tracking down the drug, as few pharmacies in the city sell it.

While many city residents have shown interest in buying Tamiflu, a medication produced by Switzerland's Roche Holding AG, the drug is in short supply as it is rarely prescribed in China.

"We receive about 10 calls a day about Tamiflu," said a pharmacist at Ruijin Hospital. "But we have no stock of it, as it is rarely prescribed by doctors due to its high price."

The drug sells for about 60 yuan (US$7.35) a package.

Renji Hospital said it usually keeps a small stock of Tamiflu, but it ran out last week.

"We have failed to purchase more as other regions or countries have stockpiled it," the pharmacist said.