January 30, 2004

 

 

WHO: Insufficient Precautionary Measures Could Increase Bird Flu Risk

 

The World Health Organization is warning that insufficient safety measures adopted during culling of sick chickens could increase the risk of the bird flu to humans.

 

Television and newspaper images of bare-handed people, without goggles or masks, flinging chicken carcasses into mass graves or stuffing live ones into sacks have alarmed officials at the U.N. health agency, which is urging countries battling the disease to follow its safety advice.

 

Tens of millions of chickens and ducks have died in 10 countries across the region - from the disease or in government-ordered slaughters aimed at containing it. The virus has jumped to humans in Vietnam, where eight people have died, and in Thailand, where two have died.

 

"They are trying to eliminate the animal reservoir, which is what we want, but if they are exposing themselves to the virus while they're doing that it might defeat the purpose," said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for WHO's infectious diseases unit. "What we want to do is cut the possibilities of humans getting infected and you're not doing that if they are not properly protected as they are culling chickens."

 

"There's no lack of guidelines. We've said again and again that people need to be protected and they need to be monitored and followed up to make sure they don't get sick, but unfortunately that's not happening," Cheng said.

 

Experts recommend that cullers wear masks, goggles, gloves and other protective clothing to avoid direct contact with the virus. The danger is that somebody could become infected with the bird flu virus while already carrying a human variety of influenza.

 

The two flu viruses could then swap genes, resulting in a hybrid with the virulence of the bird flu and the contagiousness of human flu, triggering the next global flu pandemic.

 

Scientists say it is especially important to wear protective gear during culls, because culling is even more risky than normal interaction with infected chickens. That's because the birds tend to excrete more virus when they are under stress.

 

"We've seen images where quite clearly they are not protected properly. We see people with bare hands, their eyes, their nose and their mouth uncovered, where they are possibly breathing in virus," Cheng said.

 

"Its a widespread problem," she said. "Weve certainly seen images of this going on pretty much everywhere where they are culling chickens."

 

WHO acknowledged that the problem is probably due to a lack of resources in many of the areas, and the agency has appealed to richer countries to step in with money and technical expertise.

 

Australia announced Thursday it will give 1 million Australian dollars (US$770,000) to help regional organizations tackling the epidemic.

 

Governments battling the disease include China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Taiwan and Pakistan. However, the strain of bird flu striking Taiwan and Pakistan is different from the one hitting the other countries and is not considered a serious threat to humans.

 

Several locations, affected or not, stepped up protection measures Thursday.

 

Indonesia on Thursday ordered a mandatory mass cull of chickens in areas affected by an outbreak of bird flu, reversing its earlier insistence that a large-scale slaughter was not necessary.

 

Singapore, which has remained free of the bird flu, intensified its campaign to cull crows, which are considered potential spreaders of the disease because they scavenge dead birds.

 

The island state also said it would kill off all of its chicken stocks immediately if a single case is found there and Taiwan ordered the slaughter of some 50,000 poultry with a mild strain of virus.

 

Taiwan also said it planned to ban the sale of live poultry at markets.

 

Health authorities in Beijing, a city of 13 million people, meanwhile, banned the slaughter of poultry in the capital and prohibited the sale of uninspected meat and poultry products in markets.

 

The European Union said Thursday it had banned imports of pet birds from nine Asian nations in response to the bird flu outbreak.

 

The ban came into force immediately against exports from Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. The latest restriction follows an E.U. ban last week on imports of chicken meat and other poultry from Thailand.

 

Most human cases have been traced to direct contact with sick birds and many victims have been young children.

 

Officials also have said there are no indications so far that bird flu is spreading to people who eat properly cleaned and cooked poultry products, but governments worldwide have slapped import bans on poultry from countries affected with bird flu.