China is able to mass-produce bird flu vaccines for people.
Zhong Nanshan, a top Chinese scientist from Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, made the remark at a Guangdong provincial government news conference.
Zhong says once the H7N9 bird flu virus begins to infect many more people, and is found spreading among humans, China will mass-produce the vaccine to help halt the virus' spread.?
This is the first domestically produced influenza vaccine virus strain.
The developers say China's willing to share the vaccine strain with other countries through the World Health Organization to aid in H7N9 epidemic control across the world.
The virus, which infects birds and people, has reportedly sickened more than 140 people in China, killing 45 since March, 2013.
Birds infected with the virus show no symptoms.
No mutations of the virus have been detected, and people have contracted the H7N9 bird flu solely by contact with birds.
But according to the WHO, flu strains can quickly genetically mutate to possibly become transmissible from people to people, raising the risk of a pandemic.
As the H7N9 virus is circulating among birds, humans are also at risk of contracting it, especially during the peak flu season, through winter to early spring.
Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says frequent smog in winter will worsen the situation because good ventilation indoors is not possible on heavily polluted days.
This is NEWS Plus Special English.
