November 30, 2005

US company denies bird flu vaccine deal with Indonesia

An executive of US medical products firm Baxter International Inc. has denied reports that the company is about to seal a H5N1 avian influenza vaccine production pact with Indonesia's PT Bio Farma.

"No agreement or contract has been reached," Baxter's External Communications Director Deborah Spak told Dow Jones Newswires in an e-mail message dated Tuesday.

"We've been in discussions with various governments and health authorities around the world, including Indonesia...but nothing definitive has come of those discussions."

Those talks have focused on potential collaboration in influenza vaccine stockpile production and "further development of an avian flu vaccine", Spak said, without elaborating.

Spak's comments cast doubt on assertions Monday by Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that his government had accepted an offer from Baxter to help Indonesia develop a H5N1 human vaccine.

Bio Farma President Marzuki Abdullah said Monday that a potential vaccine development deal with Baxter was "very preliminary" at this stage.

No vaccine currently exists that would prevent humans from catching bird flu. Instead governments worldwide are deploying normal influenza vaccines in a bid to prevent a seasonal flu from combining with H5N1, and mutating into a much deadlier virus that could easily pass between humans.

International health experts said it would take months to develop a vaccine if or when a potentially deadly mutant H5N1 strain emerges.