Asia holds its collective breath over bird flu threat for 2005

Asia holds its collective breath over bird flu threat for 2005

Michael Mathes, Agence France-Presse, Bangkok

Chilling warnings about an inevitable global influenza pandemic that could kill millions signal more turmoil to come after a grim year in Asia when nations weary from fighting SARS faced a new foe in bird flu.

Countries and their governments from Thailand to Korea are holding their collective breath to see if the infectious diseases would throttle 2005 much as they shook the region this year, when 32 people died of bird flu in Thailand and Vietnam and Asian poultry industries were sent into a tailspin.

Experts say avian influenza, the health world's unwanted carpet-bagger for 2004, has entrenched itself in much of Asia and is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

"I think bird flu is going to continue to be a concern, and by all approaches it looks like it has become endemic in eight or nine countries in the region and the chances it will be eradicated are slim," Scott Dowell of the US Centres for Disease Control told AFP.

This year saw two major outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, which slammed Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, with less virulent strains also hitting parts of the United States, Canada, Pakistan and Taiwan.

Believed to be transmitted through contact with bird droppings, the speed of the virus's spread and its adaptation to a form that can be carried by pigs and cats had shown conditions were ripe for a devastating pandemic.

Dowell, who heads the USCDC's international emerging infections programme in Thailand, and others said Asia's governments must boost their strict surveillance and prevention measures as the frontline against avian influenza.

"Certainly more could be done by virtually every country affected by bird flu," he said. "But if there is a (human) pandemic, nothing we do now is going to be enough."

The World Health Organisation (WHO) rang alarm bells this month by saying it was only a matter of time before the next influenza pandemic erupts, leaving authorities virtually powerless to stop the deaths of up to 50 million people.

Although it cannot predict when the next human outbreak will strike, the WHO said the entrenchment of bird flu in Asia signalled "the world has moved closer to the next pandemic," and that "much of the world is unprepared".

In the last major flu pandemic in 1968, estimates vary from one million to four million deaths while the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 took a toll of between 20 million and well over 50 million.

Many governments are not remaining idle. In Hong Kong, legislators have proposed a three-level alert system to warn residents of the likelihood of a potentially devastating bird flu outbreak.

In October, after several attempts at eradication, Thailand launched an all-out campaign to rid the kingdom of the virus. Experts agree the surveillance and public health response have been excellent, but the campaign came up short and the virus persists.

Despite the action, "there is nothing that has happened that allows us to be any less intense in our survey and control activities," the WHO's William Aldis told AFP in Bangkok.

Dowell believes that after a year of struggling to assess the appropriate response level to bird flu, 2005 may be the year countries need to reconsider broad use of a vaccine to stem the spread of bird flu.

While efforts are focusing on bird flu, a senior official in Thailand's health ministry, Supamit Chunsuttiwat, warned that Asia must remain extra vigilant about a potential return of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

SARS killed almost 800 people, mostly in Hong Kong and China, in a worldwide outbreak that infected more than 8,000 by the end of last year.

"We cannot lower our guard and this is the message we are trying to communicate to public health personnel," Supamit said.

"The biology of the virus tell us it is quite reasonable SARS is going to come back," Dowell said, "but I think the region is far better prepared than a couple years ago for a recurrence."

Earlier this month China's government announced that a vaccine for SARS had emerged from the first phase clinical test as both safe and effective.