Nations Meet to Prepare Bird Flu Response
Date: 07-Oct-05
Country: USA
Author: Maggie Fox
At the same time, President George W. Bush met with top health and security advisers about ways the United States can deal with a influenza pandemic and scheduled a meeting with top vaccine manufacturers for Friday, and members of Congress introduced legislation that would help develop better flu vaccines and help spot outbreaks at the earliest moment.
Everyone at the international meeting, sponsored by the US State Department, has agreed in principle to share the information, quickly, that could allow health experts to contain the virus if it makes the jump to easily infect people.
Now, said officials, it is critical to make sure they actually do so.
"Speed is life," said a Health and Human Services Department official, who asked not to be named.
"With proper coordination, we might be able to intervene in time."
The officials did not specifically say if other countries and the World Health Organization would move in and share drugs to treat influenza and vaccines to prevent it were a human epidemic to start somewhere. But they hinted strongly such help would not be available if a country had an outbreak and did not immediately report it.
"We must share epidemiological data and samples with one another," the HHS official said.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed or forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and infected more than 100 people, killing at least 60 in four Asian nations since late 2003.
One of the experts' greatest fears is that the virus will mutate so that it is able to be easily transmitted among humans, triggering a pandemic.
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and WHO experts have warned that an influenza pandemic that could kill millions is certain, but there is no way to tell when it will come.
Millions have died in past influenza pandemics, the worst of which occurred in 1918 when the "Spanish flu" virus killed as many as 50 million people.
KEEPING TABS ON VIRUS
The WHO has been tracking the virus, taking samples and sending them to labs to be tested for mutations. WHO officials say rapid action will be needed if the virus crosses the tipping point and is passed between humans.
Some experts say the virus could theoretically be contained if the first human victims of a new strain are quickly quarantined and treated with antiviral drugs, while others around them are vaccinated.
But stocks of antiviral drugs, like Gilead and Roche's Tamiflu, are limited, and the manufacturers do not have the capacity to produce large quantities quickly.
And scientists and officials alike have complained that certain countries, which they will not name, have not always shared that information quickly.
SARS is one example, noted the HHS official. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome first started affecting people in China's Guangdong province in late 2002, but it was not reported until months later, and by June 2003 it had swept to several cities around the world, infecting close to 8,000 people and killing about 800.
It has been contained. "The SARS epidemic demonstrated that governments react to health crises in different ways, the HHS official said.
"We simply will not have containment unless we have transparency," said the HHS official.
Without quick information, the international community will be unable to act to help the first affected country, the official said. "Without that kind of early cooperation, we will pull back to the next firebreak because we will have to begin to protect ourselves," the official said.
Countries need "an incentive for telling the truth and telling it quickly," said an official of the US Agency for International Development, who also asked not to be named.
He said USAID had made avian flu its top priority.
A State Department official, who like the others refused to be named, said countries must also ask for help if they need it. "It is not helpfu
