Final stage for bird flu medicine
The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) is in the final stages of developing its own medicine to treat bird flu.
The GPO has contacted Siriraj Hospital's Faculty of Medicine about conducting a bio-equivalence study on the GPO medicine and an imported birdflu drug, Deputy Public Health Minister Anutin Charnveerakul said on Wednesday."The study will take one or two months," Anutin said, adding that the GPO would register the birdflu medicine with the Food and Drug Administration as soon as the study was completed. "Then, it will be given to patients," Anutin said. He urged people who regularly have close contact with fowls to take preventive measures, as birdflu outbreaks were more likely in the rainy season. In a related development, Sompong Nimnuan, livestock chief of Phichit's Sam Ngam district, said his team had already exterminated nearly 200 chickens in a village in Tambon Nong Sone after many fowls died mysteriously. "We have to take preventive measures because bird flu erupted around here previously," Sompong said. Some chickens had already been sent for lab tests, the results of which should be available next week, he said. Phichit deputy livestock chief Thammanoon Thongsuk said officials would cull fowls in areas where large numbers of them had died mysteriously. "We offer compensation for exterminated birds," he said. The Nation
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