October 18, 2005

UK to hold bird flu conference in December

The UK would hold a bird flu conference this December, which would examine ways to deal with a possible pandemic, the country's Medical Research Council (MRC) said.

Scientists and policy makers worldwide would participate in the two-day conference held in London.

An MRC team of experts would also visit China, Vietnam and Hong Kong to investigate the virus. The visits would last from late October to early November.

MRC also stressed the need for information sharing between countries and collaborative research to deal with the disease.

Meanwhile, the US would help Indonesia against fight bird flu through laboratory upgrades and improving surveillance, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said.

However, she added that both governments were concerned about the concentration of domestic chickens in Indonesia's urban areas. As an example, she said central Jakarta alone had about 200 places where large numbers of chickens were kept.

The US had earlier set aside US$25 million to help Asian countries hit by bird flu, for training, supplies, lab equipments, public education and localised monitoring systems.