WHO praises bird flu measures

The World Health Organization (WHO) has welcomed the Turkmen government’s efforts on its preparedness for a possible bird flu outbreak in the country, which neighbours Kazakhstan where the virus resurfaced in March. “We are glad the government requested us [the WHO] to visit. We have spent three days in the capital [Ashgabat] visiting laboratories to look at the preparedness [level], if a case [of bird flu] occurs,” Bernardus Ganter, the WHO’s regional adviser on communicable disease surveillance, told IRIN from Denmark’s capital Copenhagen on Tuesday. Over 100 participants attended a seminar on bird flu, organised by the Turkmen Ministry of Health and the WHO European Regional Bureau, in the Turkmen capital on 4-7 April. Ganter, who attended the event in the former Soviet republic where the H5N1 virus has yet to be detected, said that the Central Asian country still faced challenges on the issue. A team of experts also held a workshop to train local health workers on bird flu and a possible pandemic, and held activities on emergency situations. “It is a continuing process and this was the first step, but further efforts would be to strengthen the health system and to have working laboratories in place, if anything suspicious were to appear,” he remarked. WHO experts on infectious diseases, epidemiologists, virologists and laboratory experts attended the three-day seminar to work out a strategy of controlling the spread of the deadly virus on national and regional levels, and to discuss preventive measures aimed at reducing the risk of a pandemic, according to the State Information Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH). In an effort to mitigate any risk, Turkmenistan has banned the import of live poultry and poultry products. Further preventative measures, such as disinfection facilities at border checkpoints, creation of stocks of Tamiflu (medicine for the treatment of people with bird flu symptoms) and strict control of poultry farms, have also been taken. “[The] WHO works on public health measures to protect the people and we hope the FAO [UN Food and Agriculture Organization] will receive a similar request from the government,” Ganter explained, saying that various sectors needed to be involved in the prevention and control of a potential avian flu outbreak in the country. The H5N1 strain of the deadly bird flu virus has spread into Europe, Africa and resurfaced in Asia. The WHO has confirmed that 176 people have been infected with bird flu around the world since 2003 and that 98 have died. Human cases, which are still very rare, have been reported in six countries, with most of them in Asia. Meanwhile, a report by the Kazakh emergency situations ministry said an international conference on regional cooperation in fighting bird flu was scheduled in the Kazakh commercial capital, Almaty, on 12-13 June, which Turkmenistan will attend.