February 26, 2004

UN FAO Urges Continued Vigilance Against Bird Flu

New outbreaks of bird flu are occurring around Asia, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday as it prepared to hold an emergency meeting on strategies to control the disease and rehabilitate the battered poultry industry.

A statement released by the FAO Asia-Pacific office in Bangkok said the situation in some countries "is still unclear," and requires further investigation of the spread of the virus in order to get it under control.

Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam are the countries that have been affected by the virulent H5N1 strain of the disease, said the statement, while Pakistan has been hit by a milder version.

FAO estimated that about 100 million birds have died or culled to battle the disease. The human toll from the disease is 22 deaths: 15 in Vietnam and seven in Thailand.

Officials and experts from 23 Asia-Pacific countries will meet in Bangkok from Thursday through Saturday to review the fight against the virus and plan moves to cope with it.

The meeting is jointly organized by FAO along with the World Organization for Animal Health, in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

It urged that continued surveillance and control activities, including elimination of all birds in groups where infections have been found. The statement also called for the strengthening of biosecurity measures.

FAO has sent several disease experts to Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam on assessment and assistance missions.

"The findings of these missions will be instrumental to understand the origin of the epidemic and the factors that lead to such a wide and massive spread of the virus," said the FAO.