Southeast Asia Fights Bird Flu, Top Health Risk
Date: 21-Dec-04
Country: SINGAPORE
Author: Jacqueline Wong
The avian flu virus could trigger a lethal pandemic among humans if not contained, said Francois-Xavier Meslin, a coordinator at the World Health Organisation.
"The disease is now endemic in the region, endemic in poultry, we have cases popping up in humans," he said on the sidelines of a regional meeting on the bird flu virus.
"You will keep on having cases in humans and maybe eventually a pandemic strain of virus emerging," said Meslin, adding there was a need for better surveillance and more collaboration between governments and their ministries of health and agriculture.
Bird flu has killed 32 people in Thailand and Vietnam this year and millions of chickens, ducks and other birds have been culled across Asia.
The United Nations health agency has warned that millions could die in a pandemic and the number of cases could rise with the onset of winter. It wants to tighten international cooperation.
Hans Wagner of the Food and Agriculture Organization said Asia was especially susceptible to bird flu outbreaks.
"Asia is an area of very high poultry density, high human density and the centre of the flu. These are all factors that come together," he told reporters.
Singapore, which suspended imports of poultry and eggs from Malaysia after an outbreak of bird flu near the Thai-Malaysian border in August, is hosting the first meeting of the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) taskforce for the control of bird flu.
"Scientific evidence suggests that the H5N1 virus is now endemic in this region. Overcoming this threat is therefore the single most pressing agricultural and public health issue facing us today," Minister of State for Defence and National Development, Cedric Foo, said in a speech to more than 50 delegates at the conference.
ASEAN comprises Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, originated in Guangdong in November 2002 and went on to kill 800 people around the world, including about 350 in China, bringing Asian tourism and air industries almost to a halt.
The illness is triggered by a new member of the family of coronaviruses, traditionally a cause of the common cold, and experts say it could return in the northern hemisphere's autumn, a season when other coronaviruses often reappear.
Experts believe SARS originated in civet cats and jumped to humans. But the bird flu virus is believed to represent a much greater threat because it is now so widespread among poultry in some of the world's most populous countries.
Health officials have also since learned how to control SARS outbreaks, lessening the chances of another major outbreak.
