According to Dr V M Katoch, secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research, indigenous vaccine for swine flu will be released by March along with testing kits at just 25 per cent of the cost of other similar kits of foreign origin.

He informed that progress has been made in this direction and five Indian companies are working on it.

He also said that a network would be created at a national-level among universities to help National Centre for disease Control (NCDC) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in handling any such epidemics in future. He is of the opinion that H1N1 would be completely uprooted in the country within a year since humans would develop immunity against it.

In his answer to the query regarding the progress made on genetically modified mosquito which are resistant to malaria, he said that a policy decision was yet to be taken on the issue because it requires detailed assessment of its likely impact.

He suggested that prevention is better than cure and said that the best way to avoid mosquito breeding is to keep the surroundings clean.