Bird flu threat demands greater international response - FAO

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has called for further support from the international community in mitigating the spread of bird flu, following a recent outbreak of the disease in Kazakhstan carried by the westward migratory movement of hundreds of thousands of birds. "During various meetings, we - alongside the OIE [World Organisation for Animal Health] - have repeatedly urged the international community to invest more money in affected countries so as to improve their surveillance work early on in the virus's movement," Samuel Jutzi, director of the FAO's Animal Production and Health Division said from Rome. "Unfortunately, the international community has not come up with sufficient resources to do this." His call comes amid reported outbreaks of the disease over the past few months, in western China, Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan, fuelling growing concern in European capitals of a potential influenza pandemic. On Tuesday, the Kazakh Agricultural Ministry warned that an outbreak of the disease in seven northern villages of the country was dangerous to humans and might spread westwards. "The H5NI strain has been detected in all seven villages," Reuters quoted Asylbek Kozhumarotov, director of the ministry's veterinary department as saying. "The western region is now in the risk zone because (migratory) birds are starting to fly to the Caspian Sea and Urals-Caspian basin," he warned. According to the BBC, bird flu, otherwise known as avian flu, was thought only to infect birds until the first human cases were recorded in Hong Kong in 1997. Those infected experience symptoms similar to other types of flu, including fever, malaise, a sore throat and coughs. Humans catch the virus through close contact with live infected birds. Birds excrete the virus in their feces, which dries, becomes pulverised and is subsequently inhaled. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that since December 2003, there have been 97 confirmed cases of avian flu and 53 deaths from the disease in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Amid recent reports of bird deaths and the possibility that migratory flocks moving westward may be carrying the virus, there have been calls for work to be carried out to further understand the new flu strain. "At this point there have been no confirmed cases of infection from migratory birds to humans but we are closely monitoring the situation," Jutzi clarified, noting that to date, all human cases have been contracted from infected poultry. "The risk from the migratory birds is to the poultry. As soon as the poultry is infected, humans are at risk," he explained. He conceded that the exact role of the migratory birds is not clearly understood and that many of the infected birds could well die en route. "On the way, many of these birds may die and the poultry which comes in contact with these migratory birds are at risk of picking up the virus," the FAO official explained. While the migration route of many of these birds is well known, particularly to southeastern and eastern Europe, the Balkans and parts of North Africa, Jutzi noted that these countries might be less prepared to deal with the issue. "Western European countries are a bit farther away given that the migratory birds coming from the east do not really affect Central Europe," he said. As far as the actions required from Kazakhstan were concerned, Jutzi emphasised that proper surveillance mechanisms needed to be in place in order to identify and locate the virus. It would then be necessary to identify immediately when and where outbreaks occur and respond to such outbreaks as quickly as possible by killing those animals that may be infected and then guaranteeing limited movement of poultry to markets. "These are the tools which are available," he said. If Kazakhstan were in a position to wipe out these outbreaks then they could mitigate the risks, he asserted, citing Thailand's earlier example in halting the spread of avian flu. "Thailand has made major investments in controlling outbreaks and they have been successful in so far as there were no human cases because the virus is presumably in some parts of its wildlife still circulating. But there was political will to reduce the circulation of the virus and reduce contact with humans and they were successful in that," Jutzi explained. Kozhumratov noted that no new cases had been reported since 15 August in Kazakhstan but authorities would keep quarantine and other measures against bird flu in place until the end of October as a precaution. According to the Reuters report, since its discovery on a farm in Siberia in mid-July, bird flu has spread to other areas of Russia. More than 130,000 birds have been culled in an effort to prevent further contagion, while in Kazakhstan, at least 9,000 birds have died or been destroyed since the outbreak began in the north of Central Asia's largest state in July, the report added. Meanwhile, some European countries have already begun taking precautionary measures. As of this week, the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality declared that all commercially produced chickens and turkeys in the Netherlands would have to be housed indoors or in outdoor pens constructed to prevent contact with wild birds, an International Herald report said on Wednesday. In a similar move, Germany announced that it was contemplating a comparable plan, to be activated if surveillance showed that bird flu had arrived in Europe. Following an outbreak in 2003, the Netherlands was forced to kill more than 30 million domestic birds to control the spread of the virus, costing more than US $122 million, the report added. The FAO and OIE, in conjunction with input from the WHO, have negotiated a global strategy for the control of H5NI. This provides detailed guidance to countries as to what action should be taken in terms of surveillance, control, which particular tools to use and when. The three organisations have basically agreed on the strategies to be used and how such efforts should be resourced. They are now working with a number of donors, including the European Union and the World Bank, on the basis of these strategies. "We maintain that the pandemic could still be avoided if sufficient initiatives are made to control the virus at its source," Jutzi said, meaning that the aim should be to reduce the spread of the virus through animal control methods and slaughter. "But obviously resources would have to be sufficient to achieve this."