GENEVA, July 29 (Reuters) - Bird flu vaccine developer

Sinergium Biotech will share its data with manufacturers in low

and middle-income countries to help to accelerate a fair rollout

if a pandemic occurs, the World Health Organization said on

Monday.

The Argentine private sector biopharmaceutical company is at

an early stage of developing mRNA vaccines against the H5N1

virus and has pledged to share its findings with a network of

partner manufacturers set up by the WHO during the peak of

COVID-19 to help poorer countries to gain access to life-saving

medical tools.

Until now, the WHO has assisted partners but this is the

first time one of them with a vaccine in development has

volunteered to share it with others.

"Partners interested in this will be able to start getting

their fingers wet, beginning to practise with an H5N1 candidate

so that if a pandemic was to start ... they would already have

the necessary tools in their facilities," said Dr Martin Friede,

head of the WHO vaccine research unit.

The WHO's mRNA technology transfer hub programme includes

manufacturers in 15 countries, though not all are fully

established. Among those involved in the programme are Biovac in

South Africa and Institut Pasteur in Senegal.

The South African centre was set up after global

pharmaceuticals companies including Moderna ( MRNA ) and Pfizer ( PFE )

declined to provide the technical know-how to replicate their

COVID vaccines, mainly owing to intellectual property concerns.

The outbreak of H5N1 in dairy cows and some farm workers in

the United States prompted Washington to award $176 million to

Moderna ( MRNA ) to advance development of its bird flu vaccine.

While the WHO has said the risk to the public from the

avian influenza virus remains low and that it is not spreading

between people, they say it has the potential to cause a future

pandemic because of its widespread circulation in animals.

While Friede acknowledges that the likes of Moderna ( MRNA ) and

Pfizer ( PFE ) would be able to produce vaccines much more quickly than

manufacturers in the WHO programme, he said that the scheme

would allow Sinergium's partners to begin production reasonably

quickly and help to keep poorer countries from being reliant on

handouts.

There are vaccines available for the H5N1 strain that is

spreading among cows in the United States, but they are mostly

made using chicken eggs, which means they would take months to

produce at scale if needed.

Sinergium's mRNA flu vaccine has yet to be tested in people,

the WHO said, so it would require human trials before use.

Moderna's ( MRNA ) mRNA H5N1 flu vaccine is further advanced, with

late-stage trials in humans expected to take place next year.