Asia flu fight 'key' to defeating virus

Asia flu fight 'key' to defeating virus

Darren Schuettler, Reuters/Hanoi

Building up Southeast Asia's defenses against bird flu could take a decade but fighting the virus at its source would be cheaper and more effective to stop a human pandemic, a top animal health official said.

Too much attention is being paid to stockpiling scarce antiviral drugs and developing a vaccine and "not enough on birds," said Alejandro Thiermann, president of the International Animal Health Code for the animal health body OIE.

Thiermann, part of a U.S.-led mission to bird flu-hit Southeast Asia last week, urged rich nations to tackle the H5N1 virus in Asia's backyard farms and markets where the pandemic threat is more likely to emerge.

"It's like watching a volcano getting ready to erupt," Thiermann told Reuters in an interview.

"If indeed the virus is going to mutate into a pandemic form and we want to prevent it at source, we have to help these countries make drastic improvements in public health and animal health," said the Chilean-born scientist.

With H5N1 now in mainland Europe and triggering a scramble there for flu drugs and face masks, Thiermann worried that attention would drift away from Asia where the virus is endemic in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

He said 10 percent of funds earmarked for antiviral drugs and vaccine research should go to boosting veterinary services and surveillance, buying better poultry vaccines and incentives for farmers to report an outbreak before it spreads out of control.

"Today its H5N1 and tomorrow it will be another disease. Let's start building infrastructure and we'll be better off against avian influenza and whatever comes next," he said.

Experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a virus that spreads easily among humans, triggering a pandemic that might kill millions. They suspect migratory birds may have carried the disease to Europe from Asia and will spread the virus farther along natural flyways.

In February, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization appealed to foreign donors for US$100 million to contain the spread of the disease in Asia. But only $30 million has been pledged.

If rich nations invest now, the benefit to Vietnam would be almost immediate. It would take more time in Cambodia and Laos where public and animal health infrastructure barely exists.

"It takes a long time to train and raise awareness but if we do it right, 10 years from now we could have Asia in a place that we should not be concerned," he said.

"It can be done. The only question is will this nasty virus give us the time," Thiermann said.

Bird flu outbreaks in Turkey and Romania, where H5N1 was confirmed on Saturday, are indeed worrying, he said.

But the risk of bird to human contact in Europe is far less than in Southeast Asia where farmers live cheek-to-jowl with poultry mingling with wild birds believed to carry the virus.

"It's completely different. It's compressed and concentrated here more than anywhere else," said Thiermann, among more than a dozen public and animal health experts who joined U.S. Health Secretary Mike Leavitt in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

The animal health cadre urged Leavitt not to forget the birds -- an issue he later said had "become more prominent in my thinking as I have traveled".

Of the four nations, Thailand, the world's fourth largest poultry exporter before bird flu struck, was in the best shape.

After being criticized for its initial slow response, Bangkok stepped up surveillance and biosecurity on commercial farms. But monitoring of Thailand's backyard flocks -- where some 10 million birds are raised -- remains a problem, Thiermann said.

Vietnam, which has suffered the most human deaths -- 41 -- is now vaccinating millions of poultry. But Hanoi needs money for better syringes, vaccines and to pay workers in the field.

The situation was more grim in impoverished Cambodia, which is still recovering from the Khmer Rouge genocide and years of civil war, and Laos, among the world's least developed nations.

But a bright spot was Cambodia's program to train up to 400 "barefoot veterinarians" -- individuals in rural areas who can report suspicious bird deaths quickly.

"The idea is for these guys to be the watchdogs. That's half the battle to tell everyone 'We have sick chickens here'."