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Europe Bracing for Most Feared Avian Flu Strain

Posted on: Friday, 14 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

By Colin Nickerson, The Boston Globe

Oct. 14--BERLIN -- International public health officials yesterday confirmed that the most feared strain of bird flu is on Europe's doorstep, in Turkey, and may have already reached the continent by way of Romania.

European Union Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told a news conference in Brussels that diseased birds found in Turkey have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Epidemiologists consider this strain to be particularly dangerous because of the risk that it could mutate into an ultradeadly virus capable of spreading from human to human.

"The virus found in Turkey is avian flu H5N1 high pathogenic virus," said Kyprianou. "It's a highly pathogenic and aggressive virus."

He said the European Union plans to create a $1.2 billion emergency fund to develop new vaccines and distribute them as a precaution against human outbreak, noting that "scientists caution us and warn us there will be a pandemic."

Some epidemiologists believe that avian influenza has the potential to spawn an eruption similar to the 1918 "Spanish flu" pandemic, which killed between 20 million and 50 million people and sickened a quarter of the world's inhabitants.

European officials also said yesterday that they are acting under the supposition that avian flu detected in birds in Romania is H5N1, but stressed that tests have not yet proven that the dreaded strain has reached the Eastern European country; it might be a milder form. On Wednesday, the European Commission said the Romanian outbreak did not necessarily involve H5N1, adding to confusion about the infection in Romania.

Should H5N1 mutate into a form easily communicable between humans, epidemiologists believe it would hurtle around the planet in a matter of weeks, wreaking death and illness, crushing medical care systems and disrupting economies.

This week, health specialists warned that should a human pandemic erupt, it would take drug companies months to develop and produce an effective vaccine.

"We do not know what the genetic makeup of the eventual mutant virus will be," said David Nabarro, the UN's coordinator for avian and human influenza.

Although existing antiviral drugs may not be effective against the H5N1 strain, the European Union yesterday urged its 25 member nations to start stockpiling medications aimed at other forms of flu since they might provide some degree of protection. "It's the first line of defense," Kyprianou said.

On other fronts, the United States announced that it will provide $3.4 million to Laos to help health workers in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation respond rapidly to outbreaks of the virus. Bird flu has killed 65 people in Asia since 2003. Vietnam has been hardest hit, with 41 deaths, and there have also been deaths in Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. The money to Laos is part of a $25 million US aid package to the region specifically to combat bird flu.

The UN, meanwhile, said it will contribute $7 million to Vietnam's battle against avian flu. Australia pledged $10 million to help Indonesia struggle against the H5N1 strain.

So far, bird flu has only been transmitted from infected birds to humans in close, prolonged contact with domestic chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys. The dead have mostly been poultry farmers and slaughterhouse workers. But the World Health Organization recently warned that the H5N1 strain may be on the cusp of mutating into a virulent strain capable of passing from human to human. According to the UN health body, only 40 of 192 member nations have taken precautions against a possible pandemic.

As the H5N1 virus spreads westward, Europe is moving into high alert.

"We can see that this H5N1 virus, this bird flu, is spreading and is on our doorstep," French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told reporters in Paris.

In Britain, government officials urged hunters in coastal areas along migratory routes to keep an especially close watch on geese and ducks winging in from Russia, according to press reports. The H5N1 virus has been confirmed in parts of Russia. Hunters, birdwatchers, and ornithologists are being issued bird flu testing kits to sample dead fowl.

"This surveillance program is important to maintain vigilance," said Debby Reynolds, Britain's chief veterinary officer. "There is a risk to the UK and this is a developing situation."

Millions of chickens, ducks, geese, and other poultry have been slaughtered in Asia to slow the disease, and the same grim process is now underway in Turkey and Romania, where thousands of domestic fowl have been destroyed in recent days by soldiers and farm workers.

Turkish officials urged citizens not to panic, stressing that so far the disease in its present form is not easily transferred to humans.

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Source: The Boston Globe

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