Talks to build global bird flu defense

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Hundreds of health experts gather on
Monday to try to hammer out a global plan to battle bird flu
and stop the virus triggering a human pandemic that could kill
millions.

From financial help for some of the world’s poorest
countries to ways of improving detection, officials aim to
shore up defenses against the H5N1 bird flu virus, which is
already endemic amongst poultry in parts of Asia.

“There is still a window of opportunity for substantially
reducing the risk of a human pandemic evolving from H5N1 by
controlling the virus at its source, in animals,” Joseph
Domenech, chief veterinary officer at the U.N.’s Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), said in a statement.

The virus is known to have killed 63 people in four Asian
countries and led to the culling of 150 million birds
worldwide. It has recently been detected in birds in eastern
Europe and experts expect it to reach the Middle East and
Africa in the near future.

The three days of talks hosted by the World Health
Organization are believed to be the largest such meeting since
the virus began to spread in late 2003.

The virus remains hard for people to catch and is passed on
almost exclusively through human contact with birds.

But scientists say it is steadily mutating and could
acquire changes that make it easy to spread from human to
human, potentially triggering a pandemic in which millions
could die and the global economy could grind to a halt.

“An influenza pandemic has the potential to cause more
death and illness than any other public health threat,” the
U.S. Health and Human Services department says in its new flu
plan.

LOOKING FOR FUNDING

James Adams, a senior World Bank official due to make a
presentation at the Geneva talks, has said discussions will be
held on setting up a global trust fund which he said would
require initial donations of $300 million-500 million.

There will also be discussions on creating regional
stockpiles of vaccines and antiviral drugs to help deal with
any outbreak. A number of groups are working on developing a
vaccine against H5N1.

In an editorial, Britain’s Lancet medical journal called it
“make-or-break time for the human threat of H5N1 influenza.”

“There remains no reliable early warning system in place
across large parts of the world. This vacuum in surveillance
poses the most serious threat to human health,” it said.

Only 65 of WHO’s 192 member states have drawn up pandemic
preparedness plans, double that of six months ago, according to
Margaret Chan, head of the WHO’s pandemic influenza program.

But most are industrialized, including more than 40 in
Europe, leaving many of the poorest countries ill-equipped.

There is a fear that migratory birds will carry the virus
to Africa. Experts warn it would spread rapidly if it took hold
in the continent’s rural hinterlands.

African countries plan to lobby the Geneva meeting for
financial and technical help in stemming bird flu.

U.S. President George W. Bush last week unveiled a $7.1
billion pandemic plan, including $251 million earmarked to help
detect and contain outbreaks in affected nations.

“I think this is a very strong message coming from the U.S.
government,” Chan told Reuters.

“I am encouraged that more work has been done in the last
few months compared to before. But still there are many gaps
that we need to fill in terms of human and laboratory capacity
and infrastructure.”

(Additional reporting by Patricia Reaney in London and
Lesley Wroughton in Washington)