July 17, 2006

India develops bird flu vaccine

The Indian government Sunday (Jul 16) said that it has developed a vaccine to fight the deadly bird flu.

"It is a significant research breakthrough. The vaccine has been developed in just four months of the bird flu outbreak in India," Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said at an agricultural conference.

He said the vaccine has been developed by High-Security Animal Disease Laboratory in central Indian city of Bhopal.

In India bird flu outbreak was in February this year that killed several thousand birds and culling of another one million birds.

So far, the government was relying on imported vaccines to fight bird flu.