Indonesia planned to produce A/H1N1 flu vaccine as the threat of the virus to enter the tropical country is imminent, drug maker said on Monday.

The H1N1 virus has adapted to live in tropical environment as it has already entered Costa Rica.

The Indonesian government has assigned a drug producer Bio Farma to develop the vaccine, the firm President Director Isa Mansyur said.

The firm director said the firm was ready to produce the vaccines and would involve academic, business and government officials. The firm has gotten the samples of the virus for development, he added.

"Bio Farma has already obtained samples of the Mexican strain of virus for the production on a small scale of the vaccines from the World Health Organization," Mansyur was quoted by Antara's news wire as saying.

The director said the production of flu vaccines would be carried out in line with the production of bird flu (H5N1) vaccines which had been developed previously.

He said that the technology facility used in the production of flu vaccines for human was just the same as that for bird flu where the type of its virus development could be changed.

"For the vaccine development, we need a two-year period to start the project beginning from clinical tests to see whether it could generate anti body or not, until the issuance of a recommendation from the Food and Drug Supervision Agency (BPOM)," said Mansyur.

(Xinhua News Agency May 12, 2009)