November 14, 2005

APEC leaders to adopt information-sharing measures against bird flu

Asia-Pacific leaders will pledge to cooperate in developing a vaccine against a possible bird flu-spawned pandemic, an official said Sunday.

Kim Jong-hoon, South Korea's ambassador to the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, said APEC leaders were expected to adopt agreements on information-sharing and other measures to boost preparedness and combat the virus later this week at a summit in Busan, South Korea.

APEC will organize a ministerial-level meeting on bird flu in the first half of next year, and consider a proposal to host an infectious diseases symposium in China, also in 2006, Kim said.

A draft statement said APEC foreign ministers would "call for further support to establish a regional stockpile of antiviral medication and to strengthen regional and international surveillance and response systems" against bird flu.

On Monday, Markos Kyprianou, the European Union's commissioner for health and consumer protection, was scheduled to arrive in Jakarta for a two-day visit focused on strengthening Indonesia's surveillance and control capabilities.

Indonesia is Kyprianou's final stop in a tour of Southeast Asia. The country has resisted calls to slaughter healthy birds in infected areas-a practice recommended by the UN-because of the cost of compensating farmers and the millions of people who keep one or two birds in their backyards.

Meanwhile, Xinhua said a national nature reserve in China's Jilin province-which borders Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, where bird flu outbreaks have been reported-were closed to reduce contact between people and wild birds.

The Xianghai National Nature Reserve is home to 253 kinds of rare birds and is on the flight path of migratory fowl, which can spread H5N1 to domestic poultry.

The birds living in the reserve have been injected with anti-bird flu vaccines, said Bao Jun, the reserve's deputy director. A 60-member surveillance team and 10 observation stations have been set up for round-the-clock monitoring.