"We asked the government to ensure that we have a vaccine guarantee in case we are ever subject to a dangerous flu epidemic," head of the institute Geir Stene Larsen told AFP.

Norway, which doesn't produce anti-virus medication itself, will spend 29 million kroner (4.2 million dollars, 3.4 million euros) on anti-virus drugs and three million kroner on a vaccine guarantee that will ensure a foreign supply of at least two million vaccine doses in case of a flu outbreak.

"If ever there is a real epidemic, countries that produce these vaccines are sure to offer them at home first. Since Norway doesn't produce such medication, we could be in trouble without this guarantee," Stene Larsen said.

Norway would be guaranteed access to vaccines against the most prevalent flu of the year, he said, adding that new technologies now allow countries that produce the vaccines to make them in far greater quantities than earlier.

"The flu types can change a lot from year to year. What we're afraid of is that the virus can mutate and change qualities... and develop into something as dangerous as the Spanish flu pandemic," which killed between 20 and 40 million people between 1917 and 1920, Stene Larsen said.

"Such a thing could happen when people have more than one flu type in their body, as we saw examples of in China with the bird flu epidemic there," he said. "We've seen how dangerous this can be."

TERRA.WIRE