Special report: Global fight against bird flu

    HANOI, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam is receiving technology and equipment for producing vaccines against bird flu virus strain H5N1 for humans, local newspaper Vietnam Agriculture reported Monday.

    The equipment and technology worth 2.7 million U.S. dollars funded by the World Health Organization are being handed over to Vietnam's Nha Trang Vaccine Institute.

    The equipment installation for the institute will be completed in the early second quarter of 2008, to serve the vaccine production in the early fourth quarter of the year. H5N1 vaccines for humans to be produced by the institute are expected to be qualified for being exported.

    The institute started to produce the vaccines on a trial basis late 2005, and they have been tested successfully on animals.

    Vietnam has detected seven bird flu patients from the five northern provinces of Vinh Phuc, Thai Nguyen, Thanh Hoa, Ha Nam and Ha Tay since May 10, of whom four died, according to the Preventive Medicine Department under the Vietnamese Health Ministry.