India is likely to associate with Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan for a tie-up in bio-medical research and development of vaccines for Kala-azar, malaria and influenza. The Union Health Ministry is examining the request from these countries for the same.

A joint action, with these countries, is being proposed and it would include development of improved strategies for early case detection and treatment providing training for use of rapid diagnosis and update information, and hands-on training about preparedness and response to the participants, sources said.

Meanwhile, two ventures currently being undertaken in the country for development of vaccines for malaria are in advanced stages. The field sites are being developed at two field units of NIMR in Orissa and Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh for future vaccine trials. For Orissa, Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has provided funds and vaccine is being developed at International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biology (ICGEB), Delhi. ICMR has funded the studies at Jabalpur and CDC Atlanta, USA is developing the vaccine, sources said.

The studies are being carried out to understand the epidemiology of malaria in Sundargarh district, Orissa that will facilitate the future field trials for malaria vaccines through collection of clinical, entomological and molecular epidemiological/immunological indicators from the study site. The collaborative project was initiated during August, 2000 and was initially up to July, 2002 but has been extended till the end of 2007.

Logitudinal and cross-sectional epidemiological studies are being continued in two sets of villages in forest and plain areas characterized by hyper-and meso-endemic malaria situations respectively. Initially there were 13 study villages with a total population of 4,473. During 2003, the study population was increased to 15,525 with the addition of 23 villages. The proposed peptide vaccine is a recombinant vaccine against blood stages of P falciparum, sources said.

The programme at Jabalpur was initiated in May, 2005 keeping target to cover a population size of 32,700 residing in 58 villages. A community cohort study on pregnant women, newborn infants and children is being carried out along with hospital-based surveillance of all age groups. This study is mainly focused on to develop a well-characterized site, where the epidemiology of the disease, immune responses, parasite genetic diversity and vector characteristics are well understood for future malaria vaccine trial. The proposed vaccine is peptide-based multistage molecule, Health Ministry sources explained.