The Japan Times report : Vaccine may be linked to bird flu cases.

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Vaccine may be linked to bird flu cases

The Japan Times: Sept. 3, 2005

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050903a5.htm

 

 

 

Vaccine may be linked to bird flu cases

 

 

 

 

The weak strain of avian influenza recently detected at more than a dozen farms

in Ibaraki Prefecture may have been brought about by artificial contamination,

including by the use of vaccines, a farm ministry panel said Friday.

 

The use of vaccines to prevent bird flu is currently banned by law, and the

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said it would probe the matter

further.

 

According to panel head Hiroshi Kida, a professor at Hokkaido University, the

genetic makeup of the virus found at the Ibaraki farms was strikingly similar to

that of a bird flu virus found in Guatemala and Mexico, too far for a migrating

bird to carry into Japan. It is also different from other Central American

strains of the virus previously found in other parts of Asia.

 

This led the panel to suspect that a vaccine developed using the Central

American virus was brought into Japan and used on some birds, infecting the

animals around them, he said.

 

The ministry has a stock of vaccines to be used in the event of a massive bird

flu outbreak, but has banned its general use because vaccinated birds will

develop the antibody and be indistinguishable from animals that have really come

down with the disease.

 

The Japan Times: Sept. 3, 2005

© All rights reserved

 

 

 

 

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