February 11, 2004

 

 

WHO Looking For Increased Effort In Asian Bird Flu Fight

 

The World Health Organization is expressing concern that Asian governments may not be doing enough to contain the spread of bird flu.

 

International public health, food safety and veterinary experts, at a meeting last week in Rome, endorsed the use of antiflu vaccines as a complement to the slaughter of potentially infected birds as a strategy for containing the disease's spread.

 

Some public health experts worry that some Asian governments could be scaling back the scope of their culling operations, believing that vaccinations can save poultry and defray the economic cost of the bird flu outbreak.

 

"What we are seeing now is an attempt to minimize the culling operation," said Bjorn Melgaard, the WHO's country representative for Thailand, on Tuesday. "Countries are starting to emphasize the economic aspects and are giving less attention to protecting cullers and providing information to protect backyard farmers from becoming infected."

 

Hans Wagner, a food safety expert at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Bangkok, cautioned that "vaccines need to be used strategically, or they can cause a new outbreak."

 

Asian veterinary officials are scheduled to meet in Bangkok on Feb. 26 and 27 for technical consultations on the use of vaccines to restore biosecurity at infected poultry farms.

 

Strains of the lethal virus have swept through at least 10 Asian countries, and governments have killed more than 50 million chickens and ducks in an attempt to contain the disease. The H5N1 strain of the virus has caused at least 19 human deaths in Thailand and Vietnam.

 

A milder strain of the disease was found in the U.S. last week in Delaware. Tuesday, China joined several Asian countries that have announced bans on poultry and poultry products from the U.S., because of bird flu fears.

 

FAO experts have warned about the lack of safety measures - including the use of protective gloves and face masks - for people involved in culling infected poultry in some infected Asian countries. The FAO provided $1.6 million in emergency assistance to Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam this month to improve the safety of their culling operations and flu-diagnosis capability. Poor protective measures, public health experts say, could be helping to spread the disease among humans.

 

Poor surveillance systems in many afflicted countries, particularly China, mean the current number of suspected and confirmed H5N1 human infections could be "underestimated", according to Melgaard.

 

"It can be anticipated that human cases will also be detected in other countries where outbreaks in poultry are spreading," the WHO said on its Web site.

 

In Thailand, where 26.4 million birds have been destroyed and more than 40 of the country's 76 provinces have reported infections, Thai agriculture officials claim they have contained a "first wave" of the outbreak. Still, they fear a second wave of the disease could emerge.

 

Melgaard said his agency didn't have enough information to comment on the Thai assessment. "The disease is still spreading. This thing is by no means over," he said. "The human health risk is absolutely there."

 

Tuesday, European Union Health Commissioner David Byrne said a ban on Thai poultry imports won't be lifted until the WHO gives its green light that the avian influenza outbreak has been eradicated. "Stringent measures will be necessary before the ban is lifted," Byrne told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. "We must be assured that our own authorities are satisfied."

 

Thailand's poultry exports totaled $1.3 billion last year, making the country Asia's biggest exporter and the world's fourth largest exporter.

 

International public health experts worry that if avian flu continues to spread, the H5N1 strain of the virus could mutate into a more dangerous version that can spread between humans, raising the risk of a global pandemic. So far, there have been no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of H5N1 disease.

 

Meanwhile, China's Agriculture Ministry said it is canceling U.S. poultry import permits, adding that it would return or destroy American poultry or poultry products arriving at Chinese ports. China's action follows similar bans on U.S. poultry by Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, after officials in Delaware reported bird flu there.

 

According to China's Agriculture Ministry, the country's total import of poultry meats and products during 2003 was 643,000 tons - 96% of which came from the U.S. That is a small fraction of China's total poultry market; the country produced more than 9 million tons of chicken meat alone last year - 20% of worldwide production.