March 1, 2004

Asian Governments Urged To Contain Bird Flu In 4 Months

A leading animal health expert warned that if Asian governments do not contain the spread of bird flu within four months, they will be faced with escalating costs and further damage to the poultry industry.
 
"Four months is a good figure to eradicate the disease," said Bernard Vallat, director general of the World Organization for Animal Health, but added that it could take years to stop the avian flu in its tracks.
 
Vallat spoke at a press conference concluding a three-day meeting during which delegates warned against complacency in countries affected by an outbreak that has devastated the continent's poultry industry and cost 22 human lives.
 
"Our conclusion at the meeting is that the virus is still circulating in the infected zone," Vallat said.
 
Meanwhile, an agriculture official expressed concern that the virus may be spreading in southwestern Japan, after five more chickens tested positive in initial screenings Saturday.
 
Follow-up tests were scheduled to confirm those findings and determine what strain of the disease the birds were carrying, said Hyogo prefecture (state) agricultural official Ryuichi Hasegawa.
 
The sick chickens had been shipped to a slaughterhouse in Hyogo with about 9,000 others from a farm in neighboring Kyoto prefecture, where Japan's fourth suspected outbreak of bird flu was announced Friday.
 
Authorities are still awaiting final results for that suspected outbreak, but have given orders to recall meat and eggs and conduct tests on poultry shipped from that farm.
 
The Bangkok conference appeared to downplay the importance of vaccines. Some scientists are concerned that vaccination, in place of culling, could present new problems if not carried out correctly.
 
Problems include controlling the quality of the vaccine, its availability, and major labor costs since each chicken has to be inoculated twice.
 
Vallat said a vaccine was a valuable but not crucial weapon in fighting the influenza which had to be eradicated by a combination of measures including culling, proper disposal of carcasses and an early warning system.
 
Vallat said his organization and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization were expecting $10 million from the World Bank and were confident of getting hundreds of millions of dollars from other donors to combat the flu. He didn't provide details.
 
The conference had earlier predicated the total cost of controlling the outbreak could eventually mount to billions of dollars.
 
Representatives of 23 nations, including possible aid donors and all the infected countries, attended the Bangkok meeting.