SURABAYA, KOMPAS – The development and preparation of the bird flu vaccine must be carried out as a preventive measure in facing the possibility of a bird flu pandemic. Collaboration between universities at the international level is one of the ways to speed up the discovery of a more effective and efficient vaccine formulation.
This topic was discussed in the “Swiss-Indonesian Vaccine Formulation Symposium” at Airlangga University (Unair), Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday (29/3). The symposium signals the start of bird flu vaccine research collaboration between Unair and two Swiss universities, namely Lausanne University and Geneva University.
Unair Bird Flu research Center Head Chairul Anwar Nidom said the collaboration was initiated to create a bird flu vaccine that only required one injection for humans or animals to prevent bird flu infection.
“At the moment, the bird flu vaccine is administered a number of times and so the global demand and availability is insufficient. Therefore the one-shot vaccine must be developed to face the possibility of a future bird flu plague," Nidom said.
The cooperative research will take place until 2019 and will be funded by the Swiss government through the Swiss Science National Foundation. The provided funds amount to around Rp 8 billion.
Geneva University researcher Gerrit Borchard said the World Health Organization (WHO) had appointed Switzerland to develop the one-shot bird flu vaccine. Even though Switzerland has the technology to formulate the vaccine, it does not have the bird flu disease virus sample for the research.
"Unair has been chosen to be the first university in Indonesia to collaborate because it has been conducting research on bird flu for a long time and has the required virus sample," Borchard said.
Two strategies
Lausanne University researcher Christophe Barnier-Quer explained that the three universities would implement two strategies in developing the bird flu vaccine.
The first strategy is putting a number of bird flu vaccines into a particle and then finding a way so that the vaccine in the particle only needs to be administered once in humans and animals.
The second strategy is to be carried out as an anticipatory measure if it turns out that the one-shot vaccine is not found by 2019. The strategy combines vaccine and adjuvant (substance added to increase vaccine effectiveness).
PT Bio Farma Surveillance and Clinical Tests division head Novilia Sjafri Bachtiar said as the only bird flu vaccine producer in Indonesia, the company had been experiencing some challenges in the development of the vaccine. The challenges include technological limitations and high development costs.
To resolve the problem, PT Bio Farma cannot work alone. It believes cooperation with universities will save development time and the cost of vaccine research.
"If PT Bio Farma does it alone, it is estimated that the research to find an efficient bird flu vaccine formulation would be achieved after more than 10 years," Novilia said.
If researchers from Unair, Lausanne University and Geneva University manage to find an efficient vaccine formulation, PT Bio Farma will be willing to mass-produce the vaccine.
Broadened cooperation
When welcoming the visit of Swiss ambassador to Indonesia Yvonne Baumann at the Grahadi Surabaya state building, East Java governor Soekarwo said the administration hoped the cooperation between Switzerland and universities in East Java would not be limited to research on only a single infectious disease like bird flu. Soekarwo hopes there will also be research collaboration on non-communicable diseases such as diabetes.
Soekarwo sees Switzerland as a country with high technological advancement. He hopes Switzerland\'s advancement in the field of vocation could help develop vocation in Indonesia. One of the things that can be done is engaging in cooperation with the East Java administration in the development of vocational schools and vocational training centers.
The East Java administration will form a team to plan the details of the cooperation with Switzerland. "Later it will be discussed whether students can carry out internships in Swiss companies or whether we will invite a coach from Switzerland to East Java," said Soekarwo.
Meanwhile, Baumann said the Swiss government had encouraged Swiss universities to engage in more cooperation with East Java universities. Apart from collaborating with Unair, Swiss universities will also conduct research with Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology, Surabaya.
(ADY)
