World Is Losing Battle to Combat Bird Flu, UN Says (Update1)
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The world is ``losing the battle'' against avian flu in poultry, increasing the risk the gradually mutating virus will become more infectious to people and trigger an influenza pandemic, a United Nations official said.
Outbreaks among birds in Ukraine, Romania and possibly Africa show the deadly H5N1 avian flu strain is spreading, David Nabarro, the UN's avian flu coordinator, told Indonesian government officials and reporters today in Jakarta. Earlier, a health ministry official said an eight-year-old boy, who died four days ago, may be Indonesia's 11th bird-flu fatality.
``We are losing the battle against this particular'' avian influenza outbreak in birds, Nabarro said. ``We must focus on stamping it out.''
Human infections from H5N1 have more than doubled this year, prompting health authorities to warn that more needs to be done to control outbreaks in poultry, which increase the risk of the virus mutating and causing a pandemic that may kill millions.
Nabarro was appointed in September by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to coordinate UN efforts to fight bird flu and delay the next pandemic. The H5N1 virus has killed at least 71 people in Asia since 2004. There have been at least 139 human cases, including 95 this year, according to figures updated by the World Health Organization on Dec. 16.
``This H5N1 virus is slowly changing though genetic ressortment or mutation,'' Nabarro said. ``The change is slow, but if this virus undergoes the change that leads to sustained human-to-human transmission, then we have a major problem. Then we probably will have the next human pandemic influenza. This is serious risk.''
Indonesian Case
Indonesia is awaiting confirmation of its latest suspected bird flu fatality from a WHO laboratory in Hong Kong, Hariadi Wibisono, director of vector-borne disease control at the Ministry of Health, said in a telephone interview today. The Health Ministry is also awaiting test results on another suspected case: a 39-year-old man who died on Dec. 13 in Jakarta.
If either is confirmed, the infections would take to nine the number of cases confirmed in Asia this month, the most since June, when 11 cases were confirmed in Vietnam.
The eight-year-old Indonesian boy came from the Utan Kayu area in east Jakarta, where another confirmed case, a 16-year- old girl, was found.
There is a bird market in the Utan Kayu area where stores sell birds for pets, said Ilham Patu, a doctor at a Jakarta hospital treating the 16-year-old girl who died last month.
Almost all human infections have been contracted by contact with diseased fowl, health authorities have said. More than 150 million commercially raised birds have died or been destroyed in an attempt to control outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Stamped Out
``Detecting and culling infected birds is still the key, and for that we have to compensate the owners of chicken whose flocks are killed,'' Nabarro said. ``And we have to limit interaction between humans and birds, which is a huge challenge within an environment where people are used to living very close to their chickens.''
Romania began culling chickens in the southeastern village of Marsilieni in response to the country's 18th avian influenza outbreak, Agence France-Presse reported on Dec. 17. The poultry tested positive to an H5 avian-flu subtype, AFP said.
In a separate report the same day, AFP said diseased poultry in the Crimea area of neighboring Ukraine tested positive in a U.K. laboratory to the H5N1 bird-flu strain.
Malawi
Malawi, in southeast Africa, is investigating a possible outbreak after thousands of fork-tailed drongo birds died in the central district of Ntchisi, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) east of the capital, Lilongwe, China's official Xinhua news agency said on Dec. 16.
``We believe that it is starting to spread into Africa,'' Nabarro said. ``I do hope that the Malawi case is not H5N1. If they are, then it's very serious.''
``The close proximity between people and animals and insufficient surveillance and disease control capacities in eastern African countries create an ``ideal breeding ground'' for the virus, Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer with the UN's Food & Agriculture Organization, said in a statement on Oct. 19.
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) -- The world is ``losing the battle'' against avian flu in poultry, increasing the risk the gradually mutating virus will become more infectious to people and trigger an influenza pandemic, a United Nations official said.
Outbreaks among birds in Ukraine, Romania and possibly Africa show the deadly H5N1 avian flu strain is spreading, David Nabarro, the UN's avian flu coordinator, told Indonesian government officials and reporters today in Jakarta. Earlier, a health ministry official said an eight-year-old boy, who died four days ago, may be Indonesia's 11th bird-flu fatality.
``We are losing the battle against this particular'' avian influenza outbreak in birds, Nabarro said. ``We must focus on stamping it out.''
Human infections from H5N1 have more than doubled this year, prompting health authorities to warn that more needs to be done to control outbreaks in poultry, which increase the risk of the virus mutating and causing a pandemic that may kill millions.
Nabarro was appointed in September by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to coordinate UN efforts to fight bird flu and delay the next pandemic. The H5N1 virus has killed at least 71 people in Asia since 2004. There have been at least 139 human cases, including 95 this year, according to figures updated by the World Health Organization on Dec. 16.
``This H5N1 virus is slowly changing though genetic ressortment or mutation,'' Nabarro said. ``The change is slow, but if this virus undergoes the change that leads to sustained human-to-human transmission, then we have a major problem. Then we probably will have the next human pandemic influenza. This is serious risk.''
Indonesian Case
Indonesia is awaiting confirmation of its latest suspected bird flu fatality from a WHO laboratory in Hong Kong, Hariadi Wibisono, director of vector-borne disease control at the Ministry of Health, said in a telephone interview today. The Health Ministry is also awaiting test results on another suspected case: a 39-year-old man who died on Dec. 13 in Jakarta.
If either is confirmed, the infections would take to nine the number of cases confirmed in Asia this month, the most since June, when 11 cases were confirmed in Vietnam.
The eight-year-old Indonesian boy came from the Utan Kayu area in east Jakarta, where another confirmed case, a 16-year- old girl, was found.
There is a bird market in the Utan Kayu area where stores sell birds for pets, said Ilham Patu, a doctor at a Jakarta hospital treating the 16-year-old girl who died last month.
Almost all human infections have been contracted by contact with diseased fowl, health authorities have said. More than 150 million commercially raised birds have died or been destroyed in an attempt to control outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in Asia and Eastern Europe.
Stamped Out
``Detecting and culling infected birds is still the key, and for that we have to compensate the owners of chicken whose flocks are killed,'' Nabarro said. ``And we have to limit interaction between humans and birds, which is a huge challenge within an environment where people are used to living very close to their chickens.''
Romania began culling chickens in the southeastern village of Marsilieni in response to the country's 18th avian influenza outbreak, Agence France-Presse reported on Dec. 17. The poultry tested positive to an H5 avian-flu subtype, AFP said.
In a separate report the same day, AFP said diseased poultry in the Crimea area of neighboring Ukraine tested positive in a U.K. laboratory to the H5N1 bird-flu strain.
Malawi
Malawi, in southeast Africa, is investigating a possible outbreak after thousands of fork-tailed drongo birds died in the central district of Ntchisi, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) east of the capital, Lilongwe, China's official Xinhua news agency said on Dec. 16.
``We believe that it is starting to spread into Africa,'' Nabarro said. ``I do hope that the Malawi case is not H5N1. If they are, then it's very serious.''
``The close proximity between people and animals and insufficient surveillance and disease control capacities in eastern African countries create an ``ideal breeding ground'' for the virus, Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer with the UN's Food & Agriculture Organization, said in a statement on Oct. 19.
