Vietnam successfully produces diarrhea vaccine

Vietnam has become the fourth country in the world and the second in Southeast Asia to be able to produce an anti-diarrhea vaccine for children, according to Vietnam's Ministry of Health (MoH). State-run Vietnam News Agency reported Wednesday, quoting Le Thi Luan, deputy director of MoH's Center for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals, as saying that research done to manufacture the Rotavin-M1 vaccine has been successful. Rotavin-M1 was produced from the cell of an African blue monkey 's (Macaca Mulatta) kidney. To have a clean source of monkeys for research and production of the vaccine, MoH set up a facility on Reu Island in the northern province of Quang Ninh for the purpose of breeding and supplying them. According to MoH, the project, which began in 1998, focused on the creation of the Rota virus for the purpose of developing a vaccine and designing a production process. The quality of the vaccine is equivalent to Belgium's Rotarix vaccine, which has been used in Vietnam. Each dose of the domestic vaccine would cost around 200,000 VND (9.5 U.S. dollars), one-third that of imported vaccines. It was tested on 30 adults and 1,000 children aged from 12 weeks to 6 years for the past three years in northern Thai Binh and Phu Tho provinces. Test results showed the vaccine was safe for both adults and children, said the health official. The vaccine has been evaluated by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and approved for use by the National Institute for Control of Vaccines and Biologicals. MoH granted a product license for the vaccine to be sold in the domestic market in May 2013. So far some 100,000 children in 60 localities nationwide have received the vaccine. If it is used in the national vaccination program, the Center for Research and Production of Vaccines and Biologicals can supply about 4.5 million of doses per year. According to the ministry, the vaccine must be administered orally, not injected. The first dose should be given when the children are between 6 and 10 months old, and the booster dose taken two months after the first. Diarrhea caused by the Rota virus is an acute intestinal inflammation. According to MoH's statistics, in Vietnam, more than 50 percent of children under 5 years old annually suffer from the disease, of whom about 5,300-6,800 children die of the disease each year.