WHO's Chan aims to prepare world for bird flu outbreak

Margaret Chan, responsible for helping defend the world against an influenza pandemic that could kill millions, says an outbreak of bird flu among humans may be imminent, but there is still time to act.

"We have a window of opportunity to prevent a pandemic or at least delay the spread of a pandemic," said Chan, chief of pandemic influenza preparedness at the World Health Organization (WHO).

The H5N1 bird flu virus, which returned late last year, has killed 63 in Asia, mainly in Vietnam and Thailand. It has also struck flocks in six Russian regions and Kazakhstan.

So far there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, according to the WHO, a United Nations agency.

But from experience, Chan, 58, knows that it is important to act quickly. As head of Hong Kong's health department in 1997, when bird flu made the first jump to humans, she within days ordered the entire poultry population of 1.5 million birds slaughtered.

After severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) broke out in the tiny territory in 2003, she also led the fight - but was among top officials who later came under fire in a legislative inquiry on handling of its epidemic that took nearly 300 lives.

Her warning now comes as avian flu has spread across Asia and to Europe's doorstep.

"Buying time will allow us to fast-track pandemic vaccine production. It will allow governments to put in place a host of emergency public health measures that will reduce mortality and morbidity, and social and economic disruption," Chan said in an interview.

But WHO and other experts fear the bird flu virus will mutate or mix its genetic material with seasonal human flu - which kills up to 500,000 people a year - creating a deadly pandemic strain that could spread rapidly across continents.

The diminutive doctor, who began her career as a teacher before earning a medical degree in Ontario, Canada, is working hard to convince all governments to ramp up their defenses.

Forecasts predict more than 25 million hospital admissions and up to 7 million deaths globally within a short period.

Previous pandemics, including the 1918-1919 "Spanish Flu" which caused an estimated 40 million-50 million deaths, and the most recent in 1968, which claimed between 1 million and 4 million lives, took the world by surprise, according to Chan.

MORE SIGNS

"This is perhaps the only time since 1968, which was the last pandemic, that we are getting signs, symptoms and warnings from nature... More and more birds are dying in different parts of the world - this is the kind of signals and early warnings that we are referring to," she told reporters in late July.