Bird flu: 'Much more money needed worldwide'

A UN agricultural expert has said that much more money is needed to stop the bird flu virus in poultry worldwide, as Vietnam – the country worst hit by the disease – confirmed its first human death in three months.

The World Health Organisation has warned that a deadly human pandemic, possibly triggered by bird flu, could kill millions and cost the global economy 800 billion dollars in a single year.

Samuel Jutzi, director of animal production and health at the Food and Agriculture Organisation, said that experience with stamping out bird flu in poultry in Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong shows that it is technically possible, but that much more funding is needed.

“We just haven’t spent enough money,” Jutzi said in Geneva, speaking on the sidelines of the first major international meeting on the topic.

“It can be contained in domestic birds. It can be eliminated in domestic birds, but at the current level of money, it cannot be contained,” Jutzi said.

Jutzi said his agency planned to announce its estimate of how much money it would take to eliminate the virus from the world’s poultry stocks at the meeting today. The FAO has previously estimated that the cost of upgrading control on small farms in Vietnam alone would be more than 500 million dollars.

The US, meanwhile, proposed at the Geneva meeting that WHO immediately convene a small expert group to plan a rapid response in the event of a flu pandemic.

The panel should also draft a plan to close gaps in influenza surveillance, and complete both in time for consideration by WHO’s executive board in January, said Stewart Simonson, assistant secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department.

Vietnam on yesterday confirmed another human death from bird flu, its first in more than three months, a Health Ministry official said. The country has recorded the majority of the region’s 63 deaths, with more than 40.

The 35-year-old man, who died on October 29, was admitted to a Hanoi hospital four days after his family bought a prepared chicken from a market near his house, said Nguyen Van Binh, deputy director of the Preventive Medicine Department. Other family members did not show any symptoms of bird flu, he said.

Vietnam has ordered 25 million antiviral Tamiflu tablets – enough for 2.5 million people, yesterday’s Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reported.

Cao Minh Quang, director of the pharmaceutical administration department under the Ministry of Health, was quoted as saying that talks with the company on a possible license for Vietnam to produce a generic version of the drug were still inconclusive.

In China, the Swiss maker of Tamiflu said it has stopped selling the antiviral drug in the country and was turning over supplies to the Ministry of Health as officials were ordered to prepare to treat possible human cases of bird flu.

Tamiflu is one of the few drugs believed to be effective against bird flu. In the event of a possible human flu pandemic, “the government is in the best position to handle rapid response and distribution,” the Chinese arm of Roche said in a statement.

China hasn’t reported any infections in humans by the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu. However, Beijing reopened an investigation on Sunday into whether bird flu killed a 12-year-old girl and sickened two people last month in cases originally ruled not to be from H5N1.

Health officials say human cases are inevitable if China can’t stop repeated outbreaks in poultry.

Health Minister Gao Qiang ordered local officials to step up efforts to prevent human infections and preparations to treat possible cases, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

In Japan, the Agricultural Ministry said it will cull 170,000 more chickens after a bird flu virus – probably the less virulent H5N2 strain – was detected at farm north of Tokyo, according to public broadcaster NHK. Local authorities said the virus was detected last week in two chicken pens at the farm in Ibaraki prefecture (state), 64 miles north of Tokyo.