Vietnam this year plans to turn out vaccines against H5N1 virus and research into producing bird flu-testing kits.

The vaccine production will be implemented if upcoming tests of bird flu vaccines on people show good results, according to the country's national Hygiene and Epidemiology Institute on Monday.

Vietnam, which has used bird flu vaccines on mice, chickens and monkeys on a pilot basis, has just found that the vaccines are effective on mice and chickens. The final result of the vaccination on monkeys will come out late February.

The country, which started researching into vaccines against bird flu virus strain H5N1 in early 2004, has experienced three outbreaks of bird flu in people, killing 32 local people since Dec.26, 2003.

In the most recent outbreak starting from Dec. 16, 2004, Vietnam has detected 17 local people to contract H5N1, of whom 12 have died, and five have fully recovered.

Bird flu has killed and led to the forced culling of more than 1.5 million fowls in the country's 35 cities and provinces since January this year. Up to date, 10 localities have detected no new bird flu-affected spots in their territories for at least 21 days.