Billion dollars needed for bird flu in Africa

Thursday, June 08, 2006 - 07:33 AM

The United Nation’s bird flu chief said yesterday that the three-year estimate of funds needed to stem the deadly virus in Africa could be as high as $1bn (€782m).

David Nabarro noted that funds pledged at a donor’s conference in Beijing in January – when the disease was primarily in Asia and entering eastern Europe - totalled around $1.9bn (€1.5bn).

“Now, we’ve got a situation where the disease is moving quite energetically into Africa, and new countries are reporting avian influenza at quite frequent intervals,” he told reporters in Vienna.

“Proportionally, it certainly seems to me to be appropriate that the three-year estimate for Africa” is between €500m (€391m) and 1bn (€782m), Nabarro said.

Nabarro stressed it was important not to get caught up with long-term figures, but to focus on rapid delivery for countries that needed the money now.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed 128 people worldwide since it began spreading in Asia in late 2003. It also is being blamed for the death or slaughter of some 200 million birds.

The Vienna meeting was a follow-up to the gathering in Beijing, where more than 30 countries pledged nearly €1.9bn (€1.5bn) to fight the deadly virus.

Earlier, the European Commission and the World Bank announced the creation of a multi-donor trust fund aimed at helping developing countries boost their bird flu preparedness and minimise the possibility of a human flu pandemic.

The fund’s aim is to support national and regional action plans, said Koos Richelle, director general of the European Commission’s EuropeAid Co-operation Office.

Several countries – including China, Russia, Slovenia, Korea, Iceland and Australia – also have agreed to pay into the fund, Richelle said.

“It’s not just a matter of altruism … health is a global public good, and threats to health in the international community must be dealt with,” Richelle said. “We have a clear self-interest in supporting the poorer countries.”

A World Bank official said the EU’s contribution was €46m, and that Britain also was expected to join the group of donors.

A new outbreak of bird flu virus has been confirmed in poultry in western China, the government has reported.

The outbreak occurred in a farm in Hetian county in the Xinjiang region, the official Xinhua News Agency said late yesterday, citing the Agriculture Ministry.

The report did not say when the birds fell sick or how many were infected.

China has reported more than 30 outbreaks of H5N1 in domestic and migratory birds since October.