HANOI, March 4 (Xinhuanet) -- A World Health Organization (WHO) official said he believes the current outbreak of bird flu in Vietnam is likely to end soon, as the outbreak pattern has shown similarities to the one experienced last year.

    "New H5N1 cases in the country are not signs of worsening situation in Vietnam," Vietnam News Friday quoted Hans Troedsson,the WHO representative in Vietnam, as saying.

    Hans said there had not been any new human cases for three weeks until the recent discoveries in the northern province of Thai Binh, and these might simply be a few isolated cases.

    "It's expected that more cases of H5N1 will be diagnosed, since it's likely a reflection of the continued presence of the virus in animals as well as of the sensitivity of the country's surveillance system, which was enhanced following identification of the first human cases of infection in early 2004," the health official said.

    He said four foreign experts visited Vietnam's National Hygiene and Epidemiology Institute (NHEI) last week to provide technical advice on further development of a safe and effective vaccine against bird flu for use in humans.

    "Aside from technical advice, the WHO can provide prototype vaccine strains and the materials needed to standardize vaccine formulations," said Hans.

    Based on the success of tests on monkeys, the NHEI will turn out first doses of a domestically-made H5N1 vaccine later this year, Nguyen Thu Van, a virologist from the institute, said, noting that the tests, conducted by the institute over three weeks,show that the vaccine effectively immunized the monkeys against bird flu.

    The NHEI will inject two more trial doses on the monkeys beforestudying and testing the vaccine on a group of volunteers, she added.

    The institute is awaiting government approval for a project to install an H5N1 vaccine production chain worth 6.7 million US dollars, to be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, to mass produce the vaccine.

    Hans said the WHO has worked with donor agencies to mobilize funds to support the Vietnamese government's fight against bird flu. In the last 12 months, the WHO has managed funds donated for bird flu control by the European Commission (EC), Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and others. Recently, the EC donated 600,000 euros (nearly 797,000 dollars) for an emergency response to bird flu.

    Now, Vietnam is treating three confirmed cases of H5N1 infections: a 35-year-old woman from Hanoi, a 21-year-old man and his 14-year-old sister from Thai Binh. The woman will be discharged from hospital soon, local doctors said.

    In the most recent outbreak starting in late December 2004, Vietnam has detected 21 local people to contract H5N1, of whom 13 have died. The country has also found that a Cambodian woman, who had received treatment in a Vietnamese hospital near her hometown,died of bird flu on Jan. 30. Bird flu, which has killed and led tothe forced culling of more than 1.5 million fowls in 35 cities andprovinces in Vietnam since January, is subsiding. Sixteen out of the 35 localities have detected no new bird flu-affected spots forat least three weeks. Enditem