The World Health Organisation (WHO) says a vaccine against the killer H5N1 bird flu virus could be licensed for humans within a year.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has claimed over 150 lives since it appeared in 2003 and it's rapid spread has ignited fears of a potential global human pandemic.
Drug companies have been in hot competition since then to find a cure for the deadly virus and at least a dozen manufacturers have clinical trials underway or in the pipeline.
On the final day of a WHO vaccine conference in Bangkok, Marie-Paule Kieny, head of the WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research, said they expect within a year that vaccines against H5N1 influenza strains would be licensed for human use.
The experts met at the seventh WHO Global Vaccine Research Forum to review developments against such diseases as malaria, dengue fever, AIDS, bird flu and human papillomavirus, which can lead to cervical cancer.
However health experts say vaccines only work well when they match the circulating strain of flu and as the H5N1 strain has not evolved yet into a form that passes easily between humans, it is unclear how effective the vaccines produced will be.
Research does suggest that some vaccines might help protect people from death if a pandemic strain does emerge and until a more precise one can be produced.
Many countries have ordered or are stockpiling pre-pandemic H5N1 vaccines such as Tamiflu, which experts recommend to immunise health care workers, firefighters and other essential staff before a pandemic breaks out.