September 19, 2006

Asia-Pacific countries vow to continue bird flu fight

Top health officials from across the Asia-Pacific region vowed Monday (Sep 18) not to become complacent in their fight against bird flu and to increase their pandemic preparedness efforts as the annual flu season approaches.

"For the third consecutive year, our region remains on the front lines in the fight against bird flu," said Richard Nesbit, acting Western Pacific regional director for the World Health Organization. "Our greatest concern is the risk of a deadly human influenza pandemic posed by the ongoing outbreak of bird flu."

Nesbit addressed delegates in Auckland attending the annual regional WHO meeting, which sets the organization's strategic agenda for coming years. Several health ministers from across the region pledged to continue building better disease surveillance and response systems.

"In bird flu, Hong Kong will continue to improve and refine our preparedness plans for pandemic flu," said Hong Kong Health Minister York Chow. "We've also successfully banned the keeping of backyard poultry since March of this year in order to minimise poultry and human contact."

Chinese Vice Health Minister Jiang Zuojun reminded wealthy countries that they must help poor countries that don't have the resources to improve their health systems alone.

"There are still huge and daunting tasks in this region for disease control. There are still various threats from all kinds of diseases," he said. "The developed countries' responsibility should not just be commenting (on) and criticising the developing countries, but rather to help thaese countries."

"The greatest risk to human health from H5N1 comes not from big commercial poultry farms, but from the small backyard flocks," said Anders Norstrom, WHO's acting director general. "In these informal settings, people's knowledge of how to protect themselves from infection is less and their vulnerability is therefore greater."

Representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Japan and South Korea, among others, also vowed to remain vigilant in their battle against bird flu.