"The world's total capacity to produce [the two] vaccines is only 300 million doses and if it [global pandemic] really happens, no one will ever give us some," Mongkol said after chairing a ministry meeting to review the bird-flu situation.

"How could we survive?" he said.

However, at least three to four years are needed for construction of the plant and training of its workers before any vaccines can be produced.

"Well, it's better than not starting to do something," said Dr Phaijit Varachit, director-general of the Medical Science Department.

The cost of a plant with the capacity to produce two million doses of vaccine per year could be at least Bt600 million, he said. The ministry had already signed an agreement with China to build a vaccine plant, presumably in Saraburi, but the plan was suspended after the September coup.

To set up its own vaccine plant, Thailand has to start from scratch given the "zero" expertise it possesses, Mongkol said.

Another priority for the ministry is to make bird flu a national agenda item in order to improve the handling of outbreaks of the disease, which has become endemic in the country, and push for completion of the preparedness plan for the feared influenza pandemic.

In a couple of weeks at most, the ministry needs to have all clear-cut scientific bird-flu information in hand and ready for submission to policymakers through a Cabinet meeting, Mongkol said.

"We need to know exactly if using bird-flu vaccine on poultry like in Vietnam will help curb the infection," he said.

Reports of bird-flu cases either in humans or poultry pose a big "question mark", while records of many deceased patients list the cause of death as simply "severe pneumonia with reasons unknown", he said.

"Could it be bird flu? We don't know exactly. The virus has evolved and this is what we fear the most," Mongkol added.

To show how apathetic the country is about fighting bird flu and any flu pandemic, the minister said not a single meeting of people working on bird flu at the national level had been held over the past year.

Arthit Khwankhom

The Nation