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UN health chief and President Bush discuss bird flu strategy

UN health chief and President Bush discuss bird flu strategy

United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Lee Jong-wook has discussed with United States President George W. Bush the international strategy for dealing with a possible human bird flu pandemic.

“I want to thank you, Dr. Lee, for staying on top of this issue; for raising the consciousness of the world; for helping to develop an international response; and for working so closely with (Health Secretary) Mike Leavitt and Julie Gerberding and Bob Zoellick of the State Department,” Mr. Bush said at the meeting Tuesday in the White House Oval Office.

“This is a remarkable collaborative effort to do our duty to help people,” he added.

Noting that Dr. Lee had told him that the world could soon eradicate polio, President Bush congratulated the UN health official for “good work” on that issue.

Dr. Lee said work had been continuing on avian flu and pandemic flu for many years. “But it really didn't take off until the President launched this initiative in September, in New York,” he added, referring to Mr. Bush’s call for an international partnership on avian and pandemic flu.

The WHO chief also credited the US President with raising the issue with many other national leaders. “That really made a difference.”

Ever since the first human case of the H5N1 virus, linked to widespread poultry outbreaks in Viet Nam and Thailand, was reported in January last year, UN health officials have warned that the virus could evolve into a lethal human pandemic if it mutates into a form which could transmit easily between people. Cases so far have been traced to infection directly from diseased birds.

The so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1920 is estimated to have killed from 20 million to 40 million people worldwide. Overall, there have been 132 reported human H5N1 cases, 68 of them fatal, all in South-East and East Asia. Some 150 million domestic birds have died or been culled in an effort to curb its spread.