Asian nations tighten emergency response measures

The World Health Organisation and health ministers from 11 Asian nations today agreed on measures to improve their joint response if a region-wide natural disaster occurs, following last year’s devastating tsunami.

The officials agreed to strengthen public health infrastructure with an emphasis on education and practice, and to improve access to medicines and vaccines, the WHO said in a statement.

The statement came at the close of a three-day meeting in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, to discuss how the region would respond to a major health emergency.

The December 26 tsunami hit 11 Indian Ocean countries, killing more than 170,000 people with some 50,000 more missing and presumed dead.

Dr Samlee Plianbangchang, WHO’s South East Asia regional director, said collaborative efforts by agencies following the tsunami had highlighted a pressing need to strengthen emergency preparedness and response.

Dr. Lee Jong-wook, WHO’s director general, has commended countries struck by the tsunami for avoiding major outbreaks of disease in the wake of the disaster.

But at the meeting today, Lee reiterated concerns that the region was at risk of an avian influenza pandemic.

“The reservoir of the virus had moved from domestic poultry to ducks and has now been established in migratory birds in China,” Lee told delegates.

“The danger of the expanding geographical range of the virus increases the possibility for human cases to occur, increasing the potential for it to become more contagious,” he was quoted as saying in the WHO statement.

The latest outbreak of bird flu has killed 62 people in Asia.

Ministers from Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Burma, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand , and East Timor attended the Colombo health meeting.