12/21 H5N1 To Costs New Zealand/China/Jakarta Dearly

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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>New outbreak of bird flu in Romania</font>
21 December 2005 1051 hrs
<A href="http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/184718/1/.html">Channelnewsasia.com</a></center>
BUCHAREST : A new outbreak of bird flu was confirmed in Romania on Tuesday in poultry in the southeastern town of Chichinetu, an official of the veterinary health authority said. </b>

"The laboratory in Bucharest Tuesday confirmed the presence of the H5 virus in poultry in Chichinetu," the official, Gabriel Predoi, said.

Poultry from nearby farms was slaughtered and decontamination measures were put in place at the entrance to the village. Precautionary measures have also been taken in the capital Bucharest.

The risk of the disease spreading is still high, health authority official Teodora Ciolompea said.

The site was the 19th in Romania where bird flu was detected, with dozens of fowl contaminated.

Most of the cases in Romania have been in the Danube river delta to the east, located on a major migration path of wild birds.

More than 100,000 head of poultry have been slaughtered in Romania since the first case was discovered on October 7. - AFP/de

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<B><font size=+1 color=brown><center>Nation to Build State-level Health Emergency Teams</font>

December 21 2005
<A href="http://www.china.org.cn/english/government/152637.htm">www.china.org</a></center>
China's Ministry of Health will establish several state-level teams for combating public health emergencies in the near future.

The People's Daily reported on Wednesday that the proposed teams will be authorized to deal with emergencies like bird flu, SARS, unidentified virus epidemics, poisoning, and radiation accidents. </b>

China will also continue to upgrade the capacity of current state-level emergency brigades. This includes disaster relief teams, disease prevention and control teams, and anti-terrorism medical teams.

The Ministry notes the establishment of new state-level emergency teams will better handle abrupt public health events in the country.

Meanwhile, a US health official says China has been open and transparent in its dealings with the bird flu.

US National Institutes of Health director Elias Zerhouni made the remarks Tuesday. He says there is a stark contrast between China's openness about bird flu and its handling of the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS, which had emerged in China three years ago.

"China is definitely cooperative and transparent in controlling bird flu and is ready to exchange virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners so as to track the genetic changes of the virus," Zerhouni told a news conference at the US Embassy in Beijing.

China has announced six human cases of bird flu since November 16th. This includes at least two fatalities, according to Ministry of Health reports.

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<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>China to hold int'l conference on bird flu</font>

12/21/2005 -- 12:02(GMT+7)
<A href="http://www.vnanet.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=34&NEWS_ID=179815"> www.vnanet.com</A></center>
Beijing (VNA) - The Chinese government, the European Commission, and the World Bank will jointly hold an international fund-raising conference for bird flu control and prevention among poultry and human beings in Beijing from January 17 to 18, 2006, local media reported.</b>

The conference will evaluate the financial and technology demands for bird flu control in affected countries and regions, and mobilise various sides to raise funds for the fight against the epidemic, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesman Qin Gang at a press conference in Beijing on Dec. 20.

To show the political commitment against avian influenza among various countries, a "Beijing Declaration" will be signed at the conference to push forward world co-operation in fighting the disease, Xinhua said.-Enditem

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<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>EU approves tighter measures to fight avian flu</font>

2005-12-21 09:35:20
<A href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/21/content_3949744.htm">www.chinaview.cn </A></center>
BRUSSELS, Dec. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- European Union farm ministers approved tighter controls on Tuesday on lower-risk strains of avian flu virus and raised compensation payments to poultry ownersin order to better prevent the epidemic.</b>

"This directive will help strengthen our defenses against outbreaks of avian flu in the EU, to swiftly manage those that may occur and to minimize their negative impact," said EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou.

The revised measures require surveillance on low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) virus, which, unlike the highly pathogenic one (HPAI), is not believed to be the most dangerous.

Under the updated law, with low pathogenic outbreaks, EU countries must ensure that no birds are moved to or from an infected holding until the virus is eliminated. All birds from the affected flock must be slaughtered to prevent farm-to-farm spread of the virus.

European experts recently found that the biggest risk of a major bird flu outbreak would come if low pathogenic strains mutated into a more dangerous version and then spread throughout Europe.

The HPAI virus, such as the H5 and H7 types that cause high death rates in poultry, originated from a mutation of certain LPAIvirus and is blamed for the vast majority of bird flu cases in humans.

The new directive also agreed to pay poultry owners half of their costs incurred in fighting the epidemic, in both low-risk cases and high pathogenic strains.

The compensation payments, mainly for slaughter, cleansing and disinfection, will start in January next year.

The directive also orders European governments to step up surveillance, vaccination and elimination of infected flocks understrictly controlled conditions. The cost of vaccination in emergency cases will be compensated by the EU. Enditem

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<B><center>December 21, 2005
<font size=+1 color=purple>Bird flu pandemic may cost NZ dearly: report </font>

People's Daily Online</a></center>
A bird flu pandemic would cost New Zealand 15 billion to 30 billion NZ dollars (10.5 billion to 21 billion US dollars) in the first year, New Zealand Treasury's report said Tuesday. </b>

The loss to the economy would be around 10 to 20 percent of GDP in the year that a pandemic occurred, it said in a report.

The cost over four years would be up to 40 billion NZ dollars ( 28 billion US dollars).

"The economy would take several years to recover from a shock of this scale and losses could amount to 15-30 percent of annual GDP over the medium term," said the report.

The World Health organization (WHO) has warned that the risk of an influenza pandemic on the scale of the "Spanish flu" outbreak in 1918 has been raised by the emergence of a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza, H5N1.

If bird flu mutates so it can be transmitted from human to human, the risk of a pandemic is seen as high by the WHO. Under the most severe scenario, the Ministry of Health estimates up to 40 percent of the population could contract influenza, with 2 percent of those infected dying. This could result in up to 33,000 deaths in New Zealand.

Treasury and the Reserve Bank are now helping develop plans in case of the pandemic. Issues of financial support or compensation are also being considered, including who should pay if businesses have to furlough their workers, and the possibility of support for industries heavily affected by a pandemic.

Source: Xinhua

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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Deadly bird flu spreads to more Ukraine villages </font>

<A href="http://www.news-medical.net/?id=15076">Disease/Infection News</a>
Published: Wednesday, 21-Dec-2005 </center>
Health officials in the Ukraine are warning that bird flu, including the H5N1 strain dangerous to humans, has spread to more villages in the Crimea peninsula.
Prime Minister Yuri Yekhanurov says he is optimistic that emergency measures invoked to contain the outbreak in the peninsula jutting into the Black Sea may be repealed by the New Year.</b>

However officials say that the situation in Crimea remains difficult as there are more cases of infection occurring in domestic birds.

Bird flu had now appeared in 25 villages in Crimea, and the H5N1 strain has been confirmed in 11 of those.

As many as 54,000 birds have been rounded up and destroyed in the affected villages and 513 residents remain under medical observation.

To date Ukraine has based all its data on bird flu on results obtained from laboratories in Russia, but now officials say they are waiting additional confirmation of the presence of H5N1 from a specialised laboratory in Britain.

Outbreaks of the H5N1 virus have also been detected in neighbouring Romania and Russia.

The initial discovery of bird flu late in November prompted President Viktor Yushchenko to invoke a state of emergency in several villages, with the seizure and slaughter of birds and imposition of exclusion zones patrolled by police.

But many villagers complained that birds had been falling ill since September with officials taking no action; Yushchenko then fired Ukraine's chief veterinary officer.

Crimea has around 22 million of the 190 million domestic birds in the ex-Soviet state.

Surprisingly poultry producers say the outbreak has had no effect on consumption.

Yekhanurov has told his government that the measures undertaken in Crimea, a major stopping point for migratory birds heading south for the winter, were containing the outbreak.

He has proposed lifting the state of emergency, imposed for the first time since Ukraine won independence in 1991, but is first requesting that a legal analysis of the state of emergency be carried out.

Yekhanurov apparently believes that a quarantine will be quite sufficient and does not envisage a problem in lifting the state of emergency.

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<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>Jakarta Residents Are Targets in Indonesia's Bird Flu Campaign </font>

Bloomberg.com</a></center>
Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Indonesia's planned door-to-door bird-flu surveillance will begin in Jakarta tomorrow, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriantono said, bolstering the country's efforts to curb the disease that has killed at least nine Indonesians. </b>

Starting Dec. 22, representatives from local communities, the military and student volunteers will traverse the nation's capital of about 9 million people to root out diseased fowl and pet birds in homes and backyards, Apriantono said in a telephone interview late yesterday.

``Hundreds of people will be involved and we will do it for as long as it takes,'' Apriantono said. He declined to say how much the operation will cost or how the government plans to fund the program. At least eight of 14 confirmed cases in Indonesia involved people living in Jakarta.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is under pressure to control outbreaks of the H5N1 avian flu strain in birds that increase the risk of the disease infecting humans and possibly mutating into a form that's easily spread among people.

Human infections from H5N1 have more than doubled this year, fueling concern about a flu pandemic, which World Bank officials last month said may cost the world $800 billion to control.

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.

Program Extended

Apriantono said the government's bird-flu surveillance program may be extended to other cities as needed. The Agriculture Ministry will hand out guidelines on how to cull infected chickens, he said. The ministry will cooperate with the Jakarta administration in carrying out the operation.

The government is working on a new measure that may ban people from raising chickens unless they are kept it in a coop to prevent them getting infected by migratory birds, Apriantono said.

``Many of the new cases occurred in chickens raised by families in their backyards and that's why it's getting more difficult for us to detect,'' the minister said.

The Southeast Asian nation has 30 million villages with more than 200 million chickens in backyards, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

``We have to do this gradually so that the new measure will be effective in halting the spread of the disease,'' Apriantono said. About 10.5 million chickens in 70 percent of the nation's provinces have died from the disease since the outbreak in 2003, he said.

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