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Japan to Host International Bird Flu Conference

Posted on: Wednesday, 11 January 2006, 18:00 CST

Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Tokyo, 12 January: Setting up an early warning and containment system to prevent large-scale avian influenza outbreaks among humans will be discussed at an international conference to be held here Thursday [12 January] and Friday. More than 100 officials and researchers from Japan, the United States, Britain, Russia and 16 other nations will participate in the event, which is co-hosted by the Japanese government and the World Health Organization.

Japan's Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry said the conference aims at establishing the human, logistical and financial resources to prevent or minimize the damage from bird flu by working with Asian countries, which continue to report the human cases of infection to the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus. The participants will summarize proposals which will be used to compile a manual for containing bird flu. They will also strengthen the international network against the disease.

At the conference, WHO experts will present scenarios of bird flu pandemic and a series of measures to block the spread of the disease. They include swiftly assessing the extent of the pandemic, dispatching medical personnel and intensively providing the antiviral drug Tamiflu to affected areas.

Vietnam, China and other countries that have reported human bird flu cases will present how they dealt with the infections. The participants are expected to wrap up their proposals in such areas as decision making, and role and information sharing to establish an early warning system.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Thursday that the participants will likely agree to mandate reporting human cases of avian influenza to the WHO, as well as building a mechanism for medical personnel to swiftly warn others of possible outbreaks and jointly analysing flu viruses.

They will also likely agree to set up an avian influenza website from which information on outbreaks from various countries can be disseminated. The collected information is expected to be made into a database so that it can be used to prevent and contain outbreaks, according to the report.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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