World must act on bird flu or face pandemic - U.N.

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The world is overdue an influenza pandemic and it must act swiftly to prevent one being triggered by bird flu now endemic in parts of Asia where it has killed 46 people, U.N. officials said on Wednesday.

The world usually has a flu pandemic every 20 or 30 years, but it has been 40 since the last one.

“The world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic,” Shigeru Omi, the head of the World Health Organization in Asia, said at a bird-flu conference in Vietnam, the country hardest hit by the H5N1 virus.

Omi said it was “highly likely” the bird flu virus that swept through large parts of Asia from the end of 2003 would be the source of the next one, unless concerted action was taken.

Joseph Domenech of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization called on rich countries to do more.

“If they don’t do more, sooner or later the problem could appear in their place,” he told reporters in Ho Chi Minh City, home to 10 million people and close to the Mekong river delta where Vietnam’s latest outbreaks began in December.

“The ball is on their side,” he said.

The latest outbreak in Vietnam has killed 13 people. All, like earlier victims, appear to have contracted it from direct contact with sick birds.

But what these experts fear is the H5N1 virus could get into a human or animal with a human flu virus and mutate into a strain that could sweep through a world population with no immunity and kill millions.

At the first bird flu summit in Bangkok last year, experts spoke confidently about eradicating the virus.

They now say it could take many years to eliminate and a huge effort is needed just to contain a disease that has jumped to a range of animals including cats, leopards and now flies.

Omi said Tuesday’s news that Japanese researchers had found flies infected with bird flu last year showed the virus was “versatile and resilient.”

COSTLY FIGHT

The conference, which ends on Friday, will review how Asian governments have fared against the stubborn virus and plot a battle plan.

Bird flu has already devastated poultry flocks in worst-hit Vietnam and Thailand, where most people live in the countryside and keep chickens, which are often free to wander and mingle with people and other livestock.

Nearly 140 million birds have been slaughtered or died in the Asian epidemic, and the financial cost is already up to $10 billion, according to some estimates.

Domenech said affected countries will need hundreds of millions of dollars from donors to sustain a prolonged fight against the disease.

Host Vietnam, where bird flu resurfaced in 35 of 64 provinces, has ramped up surveillance systems and imposed tough restrictions on poultry movements.

But like many poor countries hit by bird flu, it has limited knowledge of the virus, its veterinary staff need training and its labs are poorly equipped.

“In order to prevent and control the disease efficiently, international cooperation should be strengthened,” Vietnam’s Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat told the conference.

A central issue in Ho Chi Minh City will be how to overhaul age-old methods of farming in Asia - where families live cheek-by-jowl with chickens and ducks that roam freely in farmyards, spreading the virus.

Public awareness campaigns about the health risks of bird flu are running in several affected countries. But traditional practices, such as drinking raw duck blood, still go on.

Experts and government officials agree the task will be huge, costly and may be impossible.

“It’s a rural disease and people have diehard traditions that are difficult to change,” said Omi.

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