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Add South Korea to the growing list of nations building influenza vaccine manufacturing facilities. Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Brazil are some of the others that have recently announced they would be entering this limited field.
There is a growing realization that the existing manufacturing facilities around the world, concentrated mainly in about a dozen developed countries, would be incapable of delivering a vaccine in sufficient quantities to inoculate 6.6 billion people.
And in the face of a major health threat, no one is certain how willing vaccine producing countries will be to allow exports of lifesaving vaccines when their own population's needs remain unfulfilled.
An unmitigated severe pandemic could not only kill tens of millions of people, it could economically cripple many nations. It could represent the ultimate national security crisis.
And so it is more than prudent that developing nations are preparing to manufacture their own vaccine.
This from Xinhua News.
S Korea to build bird flu vaccine plant
www.chinaview.cn
2008-05-15 16:17:37
SEOUL, May 15 (Xinhua) -- South Korea plans to build a plant to produce avian influenza vaccine in a bid to prepare for the possibility of the deadly poultry disease spreading to humans, the South Korean Health Ministry said Thursday.
At a report to parliament, the plant will be built in Hwasun, around 340 km southwest of Seoul and can produce enough vaccine for around 20 million patients a year, the ministry said.
The construction will be completed by the end of next year, it added.
The plan came amid widely spreading outbreaks of bird flu in the country.
The latest round of bird flu outbreaks, which started in late March this year, has spread throughout the country including the capital city. The government has confirmed 42 cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza this year and culled around 7 million birds.
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