Nasal vaccine for bird flu moves forward

A pharmaceutical company is waiting for a nasal vaccine for bird flu to be given approval for the next stage in development by US health authorities.

DelSite made the announcement at the second Vaccines Asia Conference in Beijing, which ran from November 10th to 13th.

The company has submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug marketable.

A nasal powder vaccine for the deadly H5N1 strain would take away the need for needles, temperature storage and it would be easy to administer, DelSite said.

Also, presenting a vaccine for typhoid fever to the conference, chief executive officer of DelSite Dr Carlton Turner said: "The nasal powder and synthetic typhoid fever vaccines are both first in their respective classes."

Indonesia was recently at the centre of a world health debate over whether a teenage girl had become its 113th victim of avian influenza.

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