October 31, 2005

 

APEC disaster officials meet to discuss bird flu
 

 

As fear of bird flu and a potential human pandemic grips nations worldwide, disaster coordinators from the Pacific Rim countries gathered Monday here to discuss ways to head off any emerging disease before it has a chance to skip rapidly across the region's borders.

 

High-level disaster and pandemic coordinators from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, along with health, animal and quarantine officials, were meeting for the first time to formulate a game plan on the best ways to deal with various threat levels. That includes coordinated responses to humans infected by poultry, limited human to human transmission and extensive spread among humans, senior Australian officials have said.

 

"It's going to be an opportunity for us to look at what preparations we've made, and then improve (on) those if we have to and, perhaps, set up some region-wide, APEC response mechanism, if that's really called for," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the Nine television network.

 

The participants will also work to improve communications and information sharing about bird flu outbreaks across the region and to identify areas of cooperation that need improvement.

 

Officials have said talks will also be held on how to maintain essential services such as power and water and when it might be appropriate to seal off national borders. Regional stockpiling of vaccines and antiviral drugs may also be discussed.

 

The meeting comes as a precursor to the APEC forum summit that is expected to bring top officials together in Busan, South Korea, in mid-November. Fighting avian influenza and trying to prevent a flu pandemic are expected to be high on the agenda there as well.

 

The region already got a taste of just how much devastation an infectious disease can cause. In 2003, SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, emerged in Asia and spread rapidly across the world via air travel, killing nearly 800 people and causing millions of dollars in economic losses.

 

Later that same year, the H5N1 bird flu virus began ravaging poultry stocks across the region and jumping from birds to people. Since then, it has killed at least 62 people in Southeast Asia, mostly in Vietnam, and health experts worry the virus could eventually be capable of causing much more harm.

 

As migratory birds spread the H5N1 virus to poultry in Europe, many more nations are expressing the same concerns, fearing the virus-which is now hard for humans to catch - could somehow mutate into a highly contagious form that spreads easily from person to person. The result could be a global pandemic that kills millions and cripples economies.

 

APEC members include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Taipei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.

 

Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar were expected to attend the meeting as observers along with several international organizations.