November 4, 2005

Thailand pledges US$2.5 million to bird flu fund
 

Thailand on Thursday pledged to give US$2.5 million to a regional fund to combat bird flu in five Southeast Asian nations.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced the pledge after meeting with his counterparts from Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam at the second Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy meeting.

Thaksin described the Thai donation as seed money for the fund, which will be used to support anti-bird flu activities of the five nations, including setting up a regional surveillance network, sharing real-time information and enhancing public health personnel capabilities.

The recent re-emergence of bird flu, which first swept through the region in late-2003, causing upheavals to the poultry sector and several dozen human deaths, made discussion of the deadly virus a priority at the meeting.

It has become an item of pressing international concern as well with the recent discovery of virulent H5N1 bird flu in poultry in Europe for the first time.

At least 62 people in Asia have been killed by the H5N1 bird flu virus since 2003, but most of the deaths have been linked to direct contact with infected birds. Most of the victims have been in Vietnam, but 20 people in Thailand also became infected, 13 of them fatally.

Health experts fear that the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between humans, possibly causing a global pandemic. Many countries are looking into the prospects of producing vaccines against the disease.