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.