Indonesia to import bird flu vaccine from China
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-08-09 13:11
Indonesia's state-run pharmaceutical firm PT Bio Farma will buy 48 million
dosages of bird flu vaccine for poultry from a Chinese company, a Indonesian
newspaper reported Wednesday.
The purchase plan was made after the company won a government tender for bird
flu vaccine procurement with the lowest price of 9. 36 billion rupiah (1.03
million U.S. dollars), reported Bisnis Indonesia.
Bio Farma President Marzuki Abdullah was quoted as saying the company would
buy the H5N2 virus vaccine from Qilu, a vaccine manufacturer in China.
H5N2 is one of the 15 known strains of the type A influenza virus found in
birds. Although milder than H5N1 that has been transmitted to humans, it caused
widespread, pathogenic infection in poultry in parts of the United States in the
early 1980s and in Mexico from 1992-95.
Human deaths of bird flu confirmed by the World Health Organization has
reached 43 in Indonesia, making it the highest death toll in the
world.
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