HANOI. Nov. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnam has successfully decoded genes of H5N1, paving the way for defining the virus' variations and transmission mechanisms, local newspaper Youth reported Wednesday.

    Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute and the Regional Veterinary Center in the southern city, on Nov. 15, announced that they have entirely decoded genes of the virus.

    Ngo Bao Long, head of the epidemiology department under the Ho Chi Minh City Veterinary Center, a unit which cooperated with the center in the research said they found not only the virus strain H5 but also two other strains of H3 and H4 in two samples from poultry. Theoretically, when a fowl is infected with H5, H3 and H4 at the same time, the viruses can swap their genes to create a new virus strain which can be more dangerous, he said.

    Vietnam, in early 2006, is likely to churn out 20-50 million dozes of H5N1 vaccines to be used for poultry next year, said the Biotechnology Institute's director Le Tran Binh, adding that his institute has completed procedures to produce the vaccines.

    Meanwhile, the country's National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology is completing final procedures to produce H5N1 vaccines to be used for people. The Hanoi-based institute, which has researched into the vaccines since 2004, has proposed the Health Ministry use them on trial basis in early 2006.

    Vietnam has detected 65 human cases of bird flu infections, including 22 fatalities, in 25 cities and provinces since December 2004, the Health Ministry announced on Nov. 11, noting that the accumulated numbers of bird flu infections and fatalities since December 2003 are 92 and 42, respectively.

    Since early last month, bird flu has been spotted in 61 communes of 13 northern, central and southern localities, leading to the forced culling of some 136,00 fowls, including nearly 94,500 chickens, 37,110 ducks and 4,280 quails and pigeons, according to the agriculture ministry. Enditem