Bird flu vaccine not likely for 6 months.

2004 FEB 11 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Asia's bird flu virus is resistant to key anti-influenza drugs, and an effective vaccine is probably more than 6 months away, the World Health Organization said, as Indonesia confirmed it had become the seventh country in the region with an outbreak.

WHO said it would launch a massive funding appeal to help Asian nations destroy millions of chickens in an attempt to stem the disease. Experts warned that if the mass slaughter is improperly carried out, it might only help the virus' jump from fowl to humans.

In Indonesia, bird flu has affected millions of chickens, said Sofjan Sudardjat, a senior Indonesian Department of Agriculture official. But the virus has not crossed over to humans, he said.

Vietnam and Thailand are the only countries this year where humans have caught the avian flu, with six confirmed deaths in Vietnam and one suspected fatality in Thailand.

But the virus has hit millions of chickens in five other countries as well - raising concerns it might mutate, link with regular influenza to create a form that can be transmitted from human to human, fostering the next human flu pandemic.

World Health Organization spokesman Dick Thompson warned that the H5N1 virus in humans appears to be resistant to amantadine and rimantadine, the cheaper antiviral drugs used to treat regular influenza.

"This is a disease that's appearing in the developing world. So what you want is affordable drugs," said Thompson in Geneva. "Should this move from human to human - and it hasn't yet, I want to stress that - then it's going to be a real challenge."