Experts scramble to contain bird flu

Experts scramble to contain bird flu

Richard Ingham, Agence France-Presse/Geneva

Experts in human and veterinary health met here on Tuesday to
plan action for containing the spread of bird flu as the perilous
poultry disease claimed a further life in Vietnam and inflicted a
suspected sixth fatality in Indonesia.

"The prime goal is to reduce viral excretion and the
circulation of the virus in fowl and another domestic birds,"
said Bernard Vallat, director-general of the World Organization
for Animal Health (OIE), the global watchdog for safe trade in
meat and farm animals.

"Reducing the virus (in birds) reduces the risks of a human
pandemic."

Vallat said that early detection and reporting of the H5N1
virus was vital. For every 48 hours that elapses between an
outbreak and action, "the costs multiply thousands of times," he
said.

Since it erupted among ducks, chickens and geese in Southeast
Asia two years ago, the H5N1 strain of avian influenza has
claimed scores of lives and inflicted more than US$10 billion in
economic damage, much of which is being shouldered by poor
farmers.

Vietnam meanwhile confirmed on Tuesday its 42nd death from
bird flu, a 35-year-old man from Hanoi who died on Oct. 29, while
on Tuesday, a 16-year-old girl died on Tuesday three days after
she was admitted to a hospital in the capital Jakarta with
symptoms of the disease.

Before confirmation of the latest death in Vietnam, the WHO
said there had been 63 deaths from bird flu since the end of
2003, out of 124 known cases of human infection.

More than 150 million fowl have been slaughtered in a bid to
stop the disease at its source, but these desperate measures have
failed to stop the spread.

The methods used are time-honored, but many countries cruelly
lack the resources to carry them out.

The classic panoply of measures include tighter surveillance
of poultry flocks, culling of diseased birds, compensation for
affected farmers and preventative vaccination of healthy birds,
Vallat said.

But a crescent of countries in Asia, from China to Indonesia,
where H5N1 is now endemic, lack local veterinarians and a
reliable and extensive monitoring network to give them an early
warning of outbreaks.

Vaccines, face masks, means of slaughtering birds swiftly and
cleanly may also be in short supply.
Helping these and other exposed countries will require money, as
well as human and technical help, Vallat said.

He pointed to an existing array of international standards for
veterinary health in animal commerce, laboratories for testing
samples and financial mechanisms, but stressed "external
resources will be needed."

The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the OIE have
drawn up an emergency plan for filling these gaps that would cost
around $175 million, $102 million of which would go to Asia and
the rest to Eastern Europe and Africa.

Only $30 million have been contributed so far, officials from
those organizations said last Friday.

Transported by migrating birds, which are the natural
reservoir for bird flu, the virus has spread into Russia and
parts of Europe and now Africa, the continent with the least
resources to face the crisis, is vulnerable.

The wider it spreads, the greater the risk that it could
mingle with a conventional flu strain, becoming a pathogen that
is not only lethal, as it is now, but also highly contagious.

No-one would have immunity to this new virus, which could
spread like wildfire in an era of jet travel and open economies.

Three similar flu pandemics caused by new viruses erupted in
the 20th century, the biggest of which -- the "Spanish flu" of
1918-9 -- caused almost as many deaths as World War II, by some
estimates.

At the start of the three-day conference in Geneva on Monday,
UN's World Health Organization (WHO) Lee Jong-wook said it was
only a matter of time before a human pandemic occurred.

Without adequate defenses, there could be millions of deaths
and economic costs of up to $800 billion, the conference was also
told.