MADURAI: Indigenous vaccine for swine flu will be available by March along with testing kits at just 25 per cent of the cost of its foreign counterpart, according to Dr V M Katoch, secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research.

He said that five Indian companies were working on it and had made good progress.

Opining that H1N1 would be wiped out in the country within a year as humans would develop immunity in due course, he said a national- level network among universities would be created to assist National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in tackling such epidemics in future.

When asked about the progress on genetically modified mosquito that are resistant to malaria, Katoch said a policy decision was yet to be taken on the issue, as it requires detailed assessment of its likely impact.

A better way is to keep surroundings clean and avoid mosquito breeding, he said.