More than 300 animal and human health experts from around the world opened a three-day conference on bird flu at the United Nations health agency headquarters in Geneva today with a call for global action ranging from boosting national preventive capacities to vaccine production to fight an inevitable human pandemic.
“If we are unprepared, the next pandemic will cause incalculable human misery. Both directly from the loss of human life, and indirectly through its widespread impact on security,” UN World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Lee Jong-wook said. “No society would be exempt. No economy would be left unscathed.
“This is a grim picture. But from the series of international meetings has come a truly global awareness of the importance of pandemic preparedness, and the role of international cooperation in responding to the pandemic threat,” he added, referring to meetings over the past two months addressing the threat.
Dr. Lee said 124 people had been infected, 63 had died and the economic impact had exceeded $10 billion since the current outbreak of the H5N1 virus began in December 2003. “There is no outbreak of human pandemic influenza anywhere in the world today. However, the signs are clear that it is coming,” he added.
He noted that the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 million to 40 million people worldwide, resulted from a changed avian flu virus. Since its appearance in Hong Kong in 1997, the current highly pathogenic H5N1 virus had spread to 15 countries in Asia, and Europe.
“It is only a matter of time before an avian flu virus – most likely H5N1 – acquires the ability to be transmitted from human to human, sparking the outbreak of human pandemic influenza,” he declared. “We don't know when this will happen. But we do know that it will happen.”
Calling for a global consensus and for every country to prepare their national action plan, and act on it, Dr. Lee stressed that the in the flu pandemics of 1958 and 1968, a combined total of 3 million people died and those were considered mild.
He outlined four broad areas where the conference must make decisions on immediate action:
- Preventing and containing the spread of H5N1 virus among birds and from birds to humans, with some countries needing urgent support.
- Increasing country capacity in surveillance, early detection, diagnosis and reporting of both animal and human cases, with compensation for farmers whose flocks are culled to ensure reliable notification of outbreaks.
- Establishing policies on research, development and production of vaccines and antivirals, reviewing manufacturing capacity, and access issues, including operational plans for rapid deployment of antivirals.
- Drawing up plans to communicate both the risks and the positive areas for action by all communities, including strategies for business and societal continuity.
A senior official of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) called more action to be taken at source to stop the disease in animals. “We still have a window of opportunity to stop the disease in animals,” Samuel Jutzi, Director of the FAO Animal Production and Health Division, said.
“The virus has not yet re-assorted or mutated; action is required now; there is no time to lose,” he added. “To stop this dangerous and devastating disease requires extraordinary political commitment, very substantial investments, concerted international cooperation, and severe action at the country level.”
Since 1996, the spread of bird flu has been devastating to several countries in Asia, where over 150 million chickens and ducks have died from the disease or have been culled.
The concentration of over 1 billion ducks and geese in Asia, many of which are kept in open systems, has provided an effective breeding ground for the myriad of avian influenza viruses circulating in the wild waterfowl pool.
“Too much emphasis has been given to the stockpiling of antiviral drugs while the battle against bird flu in animals remains seriously underfunded. This is unacceptable,” Mr. Jutzi said.