Some 43 tons of China-made bird flu vaccines have arrived in Vietnam over the past three days via three special flights, helping the country fight widespread bird flu, an official from the Chinese General Consulate in Vietnam's southern Ho Chi Minh City told Xinhua on Thursday.

The third flight arrived in the city-based Tan Son Nhat International Airport on Thursday afternoon, consular officer Liang Jinyong said, noting that the first flight, a Boeing 737-300 transporter carrying about 15 tons of the vaccines, landed at the airport on Tuesday afternoon. The vaccines are produced by the Harbin Weike Biological Technology Development Company under the Harbin Veterinary Institute under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Harbin, capital city of China's northeast Heilongjiang province.

Vietnam is importing more bird flu vaccines from China so as to complete the first batch of vaccination by late this month. All fowls will have been vaccinated by late March 2007.

Recently, Bui Ba Bong, Vietnamese deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, told reporters that his ministry has mapped out a plan to join hands with Chinese vaccine producers so that they will transfer their technologies to Vietnam. Made-in-Vietnam vaccines are expected to come out in 2008.

The Central Veterinary Medicine Company from Vietnam has signed a contract on importing 220 million doses of vaccines, including 125 million doses of H5N1 vaccine and 95 million doses of H5N2 vaccines, according to the ministry. Part of the volume has yet to be delivered to Vietnam.

Vietnam has so far vaccinated 94.2 million fowls in 54 cities and provinces, of which some 24 million poultry have been vaccinated twice, and the remainder will be vaccinated the second time from now to the end of this month.

Vietnam, which imports vaccines from China and the Netherlands, will have vaccinated all poultry in all 64 localities by March 2007, according to the ministry.

China's Ministry of Agriculture said in mid-November that the country now produces more than 100 million doses of bird flu vaccine every day, which can meet the demand in major areas for epidemic prevention and control.

The ministry said it will help accelerate production of the vaccine and expand production capacity. After using new technology, the production cycle has been shortened to 34 days from previous 44 days.