Veterinary officers in Europe are expected to announce a temporary ban on live bird imports later today, as efforts continued to trace the source of Britain's first case of bird flu.
Talks are continuing in Brussels to agree the one-month ban, which will prohibit all commercial imports of exotic and domestic birds in the wake of the bird flu crisis.
Britain has led the calls for the ban after the death of an imported parrot, diagnosed with the potentially-lethal H5N1 strain of the virus at a quarantine centre in Essex.
The Belgian Environment Minister, Bruno Tobback, said that the UK had been the only EU country to oppose a ban on importing birds at a meeting in March and accused Britain of performing a U-turn.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "At the time of the original proposal, it was felt that a total ban would not be proportionate to the risk.
"However, since that time, there has been further global spread of H5N1 and there is a high risk of further geographic spread of virus. This has caused us to reassess captive bird imports, and conclude that it is proportionate to the risk."
It has emerged that the exotic pet dealer at the centre of Britain’s first bird flu case is a convicted fraudster. Brett Hammond, 43, director of Pegasus Birds and licensed to run the quarantine where the parrot fell ill, has refused to answer questions about the case.
Staff at his shop premises in Little Warley, Essex, said that the parrot had died "miles" from the retail outlet, at a separate quarantine premises. A second parrot also died, although tests for bird flu have so far been inconclusive.
It is understood that the parrots, imported from Surinam, had been kept with a consignment of birds imported from Taiwan, some of which have also died.
On Sunday Defra announced its "working hypothesis" was that the bird had been infected by the Taiwanese birds. But authorities in Taiwan say that there have been no reports of cases of H5N1 on the island and the British Government’s theory had no "solid evidence" to back it up.
An alternative possibility is that birds in an earlier batch delivered to the facility could have had a "subclinical" infection, and began secreting bird flu virus only after the stresses of quarantine.
Contaminated droppings could have released the airborne virus that may have infected subsequent batches of birds from Taiwan and South America.
Last night government vets confirmed they are investigating the possibility that H5N1 was present at the quarantine facility much earlier than thought. If this theory is correct, bird flu has probably been present in Britain for some weeks if not months, imported in exotic birds.
The EU-wide import ban will not include individual personal imports of birds, but extra checks are expected to be put in place on people bringing more than five pet birds into a country.
With the potential of the bird flu virus breaking into a worldwide pandemic, it would certainly have a major impact on businesses worldwide.
Experts are saying that companies need to have a plan to manage such an outbreak to make sure that business is not disrupted.
The bird flu virus has already killed some 60 people in four countries and the risk of the virus spreading is an ever present danger.
According to the World Health Organisation, there are 6 phases before an influenza virus like the bird flu becomes a full blown pandemic.
When that happens, businesses worldwide stand to lose millions, if not billions, if they aren't adequately prepared to handle it.
International SOS' senior medical adviser, Dr Jeff Staples, said: "We are currently in phase three. It will affect businesses in a couple of ways. The phase escalation is dependant on the characteristics of the virus. If there is a phase three to four, the virus probably is a little bit more transmittable between human to human. There are likely to be larger outbreaks, there's a greater chance of businesses which have operations in the affected areas, and it could interrupt their logistic or supply chains."
Control Risks Group's crisis and security manager, John Henderson, said: "The key clearly is to plan, and plan now. The pandemic management team is something which should already be formed, and it must be a multi-disciplinary approach, with representatives from every part of the organisation. Communication is also very important within, so all employees know what's going on. If you haven't started to plan, it's almost too late."
Health experts say it's important for companies to understand the trigger points and milestones in a developing situation like the bird flu.
And, because it's also dynamic, monitoring and keeping up to date is also crucial.
That way, companies can implement the preventive strategies according to plan.
These measures may even include having employees work from a remote location like their homes, or even find alternative sources for their products. - CNA/ir
BEIJING: A bird flu pandemic - even one that took a relatively low toll in human life - would have a devastating impact on Asian countries, the Asian Development Bank warned Tuesday, as China reported its sixth outbreak of the disease this year.
Apart from the human cost of a pandemic that could take millions of lives, experts warn that the economic impact would dwarf the downturn following the 2003 SARS outbreak that led to estimated losses of between $30 billion and $50 billion.
"Many economic activities would be brought to a halt, while the health systems of most countries would be overwhelmed," the bank said.
The Asian Development Bank plans to release this week a detailed analysis of the likely impact of a pandemic on Asia's economies. But preliminary estimates from the bank's economists suggest that even a mild pandemic could cost Asia up to $110 billion from lost consumption, investment and trade, the bank said in a statement.
The death and incapacity of workers could cost an additional $15 billion.
A severe influenza outbreak could send the global economy into recession and cost Asia alone up to $290 billion in short-term losses.
The Chinese Agriculture Ministry reported that an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus had been confirmed Monday in geese and chickens in the village of Liangying in the eastern province of Anhui, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.
In a signal that the country is mobilizing to meet what senior Chinese leaders have described as a grave threat to public health, state media reported Tuesday that the central government has demanded stepped up inspections and ordered that any outbreak of avian influenza must be reported to Beijing within three hours of detection.
In contrast with the widespread criticism of China's initial tardiness in tackling the 2003 SARS outbreak and sharing information with its neighbors, international public health experts have praised Beijing's recent efforts to fight avian influenza.
"At the political level, the commitment is great," said Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization representative in China, referring to the prompt culling of poultry after recent outbreaks.
"There is no dithering around and at the end of the day this is very helpful in controlling the infection," he said.
Variants of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza are endemic in China and some parts of Southeast Asia, and health experts fear that widespread infections in domestic poultry could lead to a human influenza pandemic if the virus becomes capable of easy person-to-person transmission.
The H5N1 virus, apparently carried by migratory birds, has recently been detected in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.
Also on Tuesday, Indonesia confirmed its fourth fatality from avian influenza, a 23-year-old from Bogor in Java who was hospitalized in September and died soon afterward.
H5N1 infections have killed 62 people in Asia since 2003 - more than half in Vietnam - but the main cause of human disease has been contact with infected birds or their droppings.
There have been no human cases reported from China, but experts worry that a human pandemic could arise in the country because it has a huge domestic poultry flock, estimated at more than 14 billion birds, living alongside 1.3 billion people.
"So far it is primarily an animal disease," Bekedam said. "The more it is contained to animals, the better."
There is clear evidence that China is promptly sharing information about avian influenza with the international community.
The disease notification to the Organization for Animal Health on Monday from China's national chief veterinary officer, Jia Youling, reported that the Anhui outbreak of "highly pathogenic avian influenza" in chickens and geese had been confirmed in laboratory tests earlier on the same day.
The notification, posted on the animal group's Web site on Tuesday, said that more than 44,000 birds had been culled.
On Oct. 19, the Chinese authorities confirmed that an outbreak of avian influenza in chickens and ducks had been detected near Hohhot in Inner Mongolia and more than 91,000 had been culled.
Health experts believe that one positive outcome of the SARS outbreak was that it galvanized China's public health system and put the country on a better footing to deal with other infectious diseases, including avian influenza.
An editorial in the official China Daily on Monday called for a concerted effort from Chinese and international agencies to prevent a pandemic.
One problem for China's public and animal health authorities is that more than 70 percent of poultry is raised in backyards and small rural holdings.
"That means about 10 billion birds and it is very difficult for the government to monitor their health status," Bekedam said. "It is an enormous challenge."
The Asia Development Bank (ADB) said on Oct. 24 avian flu may cost the Asian and Pacific region US$90 to US$110 billion even if it evolves into a mild human pandemic, International Finance News today cited foreign media as saying.
Since prevention is key to curbing a bird flu outbreak, the Bank will grant US$58 million for such programs.
Headquartered in Manila, ADB warned that the SARS experience in 2003 had proved that the avian flu could exert very serious impact if it evolves into an epidemic. Besides reduction of consumption, investment and trade, this also means billions of dollars worth of losses, plus an extra US$15 billion costs due to human death or disability.
If a severe outbreak took place, it would lead to a global economic recession, which would cost US$250 to US$290 billion.
Health experts and officials from more than 50 nations around the world gathered in Copenhagen on Oct. 24 discussing policies and concerted actions against outbreak of human communicable disease to be emerged from avian flu. Overshadowed by the bird flu, the European Commission will decide today, at the request of the UK, whether to ban imports of wild poultry.
HONG KONG (AP) - Hong Kong has stockpiled antiviral drugs for 350,000 people and hopes to eventually acquire enough for two million people to help defend against a potential flu pandemic, an official said Tuesday.
The drugs that have been collected so far would be used for treating infected patients, health workers and people culling diseased birds in this city of 6.9 million, Dr. Thomas Tsang, a Department of Health consultant, said at a news conference.
Health experts have warned that the H5N1 bird flu strain could mutate into a form that can be easily transmitted between humans and cause a global pandemic that could kill millions.
"No one can really guarantee the anti-virals will work against the upcoming pandemic strain," Tsang said.
"Right now, we have about 3.5 million capsules. And we anticipate over the next few months, during the first quarter of next year, we'll be able to get an additional four million doses and our final target will be about 20 million doses," he added.
Tsang said the government is negotiating with drug companies to expedite the delivery of the medication. Researchers predict that each person infected would need to take a course of 10 pills.
Meanwhile, microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung warned the Hong Kong public against stockpiling Tamiflu - one of the only drugs effective against the bird flu virus - on their own. Local media reported last week that pharmacies in Hong Kong have dramatically marked up prices of Tamiflu because the public rushed to snap up the drug amid bird flu fears.
"We strongly advise the public against self-medication with anti-viral agents," Yuen, said during the news conference.
"That actually increase the amount of resistance in the virus leading to . . . treatment failure," he said.
The world's first outbreak of bird flu in humans was recorded in Hong Kong in 1997, when the disease infected 18 people and killed six of them. The latest global outbreak of bird flu has largely spared Hong Kong.
AUSTRALIA is completely unprepared to deal with a bird flu pandemic and its plans to cope with an outbreak are seriously flawed, a top scientist has warned.
Dr Graeme Laver, an internationally renowned bird flu expert, slammed the Federal Government's plan to give emergency service workers priority in receiving anti-viral drugs during an outbreak of the virus. He also attacked plans to quarantine people suspected of having been in contact with bird flu even if they are not showing symptoms.
"The Government is not prepared at all. The strategies they put in place are flawed, completely wrong," Dr Laver told a security conference in Canberra.
"Quarantine won't work. People arriving from overseas who have been recently infected will be shedding virus like crazy.
"They won't know they are infected. They'll show no symptoms. How is the Government proposing to to find these people?
"Quarantine will not keep flu-affected people out of Australia."
The Government is considering vaccinating all Australians and already has stockpiled 3.95 million doses of anti-viral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.
Dr Laver said vaccines developed now to combat bird flu could prove ineffective by the time an outbreak occurred because the virus could change substantially.
The only protection people would have from bird flu would be anti-viral drugs.
Dr Laver said the Government's plan to hand out the drugs to essential services workers first was wrong and a waste of valuable medicine.
Instead, he said, the drugs should be made available through pharmacists to anyone diagnosed with bird flu.
Health Minister Tony Abbott held talks yesterday with his overseas counterparts in Canada about the best way to avert a bird flu outbreak.
BEIJING, Oct. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- The recent H5N1 bird flu outbreak in Liangying Village of east China's Anhui Province has been brought under control.
A total of 550 poultry died in the outbreak.
Experts from the Ministry of Agriculture have been sent to help disease control in the village. So far, the affected area has been sterilized. No human infections or no new poultry bird flu deaths were reported in the province.
The provincial animal disease control center has taken a series of measures to demand mandatory immunity in all poultry farms.
Major Chinese cities are straining every nerve against a possible bird flu pandemic outbreak. All epidemic monitoring networks and pre-schemes for emergency have been activated.
On Tuesday, Beijing launched a thorough surveillance on poultry and bird markets. According to an emergency bird flu prevention order promulgated by the Municipal Industry and Commerce Bureau, all live poultry on sale in Beijing should have origin certificates from bird flu-free regions and quarantine certificates.
The Beijing Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau has setup sterilization stations in 27 highway and road entrances to the Chinese capital, making quarantine inspections on trucks for transporting poultry. Animal quarantine at airports, railway stations have also been enhanced.
Lei Decai, director of the Municipal Agricultural Bureau, said his bureau has seen to bird flu immunity on 98 percent of poultry in stock and 80 percent of birds in zoos, safari parks and bird markets.
The municipal forestry authority has set up 57 monitoring stations checking activities of migratory birds inhabiting wetlands, reservoirs and parks.
In west China's biggest city of Chongqing, all the 101 local checkpoints are working round-the-clock to conduct animal quarantine check-up on cargo entering this populous metropolis.
The Veterinary Department of the Municipal Agricultural Bureau said it had reinforced immunity on live poultry in stock and epidemic-control responsibilities of big poultry farms.
Hangzhou City, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, has designated a number of hospitals to monitor flu patients and asked these hospitals to report suspected flu cases.
In northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where about 2,600 birds died following a recent H5N1 outbreak, medical staffs are closely monitoring human infection cases. So far, no single case of suspicious flu symptom has been reported in the quarantine-isolation area.
KOBLENZ, GERMANY - Amid fears that avian influenza has spread to wild birds in Europe, a German laboratory was testing Tuesday the remains of 22 dead geese found the previous day on a pond 100 kilometres west of Frankfurt.
Stefan Bent, head of the state animal inspection office, said 20 scientists were assigned to urgently discover the cause of death.
The results of the tests were expected Tuesday evening.
"There's no laboratory that can do such tests any faster than we are doing them," said Bent. The tests first had to establish if the birds were killed by influenza at all. If so, the scientists would establish if the deadly H5N1 strain of flu was involved.
Earlier a spokeswoman said there was no external sign on the birds that they had died of influenza. A boy noticed the dead birds Monday evening. Earlier reports that some were ducks proved incorrect.
Bent said it was unknown if the dead birds had spent the summer in Germany, which is free of bird flu, or were in migration from Russia, where the H5N1 virus has been detected, to winter feeding grounds.
Firemen from the town of Neuwied wore biological protection suits to scoop up the carcasses at a flooded gravel pit Monday evening and take them in metal boxes to the laboratory in nearby Koblenz run by the German state of Rhineland Palatinate.
Some of the geese gave a last sharp twitch and died as the firemen watched. Swans on the same pond appeared to be healthy.
Signs went up at the pond warning people there was "mortal danger" from wading in the water, but the mayor of Neuwied, Reiner Kilgen, said there was no reason for panic.
So far the H5N1 strain of avian influenza virus has reached Russia, Romania and Turkey. The only poultry infection in western Europe has been at a British quarantine station. More than 60 people in Asia have caught the illness from birds and died.
Germany has already ordered poultry owners to keep their stock indoors till December because of the scare. Germany and Britain have backed a full-scale ban on imports of poultry to the European Union. DPA
BIRD flu has spread across more than half of Thailand, a local newspaper reported today.
An alarming 39 of the nation's 76 provinces have reported confirmed or suspected cases of fresh bird-flu infections to livestock authorities, according to The Nation newspaper.
'Last week, the authorities had just 21 provinces under close watch for bird flu, suggesting the virus is spreading rapidly,' the report added.
RESISTANCE
The paper said the rapid spread of the disease was being fuelled by the resistance of villagers to having the flocks they relied on for their livelihoods taken away and destroyed.
'We need to raise people's understanding of the situation,' the livestock chief of Kanchanaburi's Phanom Thuan district, Mr Jatuporn Kamchuen, told the Nation.
'We are receiving more and more reports of fowl deaths.'
A 48-year-old man died of bird flu in the dictrict last week, Thailand's first death from the disease in a year. His 7-year-old son, who also fell ill, has since recovered.
But three other Kanchanaburi residents are currently being treated for suspected bird flu.
Checkpoints have been set up across the province to enforce a ban on the movement of birds in a bid to halt the spread of the disease.
Even so, Mr Jatuporn said some villagers in the area had tried to prevent officials from taking their birds away, and some had resorted to killing their birds themselves and trying to sell the meat illegally in a bid to recover their losses.
SMUGGLING
On Sunday, two lorries laden with 12,000kg of frozen chicken declared as longans were seized by Malaysian officials at the Thai border.
Malaysia is currently free of the disease.
But Thailand is facing an uphill battle to contain it's outbreak.
There are only 12 laboratories outside Bangkok that can determine within 24 hours whether a person has bird flu, said Public Health Minister Suchai Charoenratanakul.
He has ordered that mobile labs be set up that can be sent into remote areas. They are expected to be ready within 10 days.
In addition, Thailand has assigned 900,000 volunteers to perform house-to-house checks for signs of the virus and ordered hospitals to vet all patients for possible bird flu exposure prior to admission, Health Minister Suchai Charoenratanakul said yesterday.
It is similar to a campaign launched during an outbreak mid last year, when 12 Thais died of the disease, reported AFP.
'With all these measures, we are confident we can prevent the disease becoming widespread,' Mr Suchai said.
The deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 and has now spread to Europe and Russia.
MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) -- Russia's chief doctor Gennady Onishchenko said Tuesday that a more dangerous strain of the bird flu virus could appear in the country by spring when birds were migrating from Southeast Asia, China, Africa and the Mediterranean.
"New strains of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, including those more pathogenic to humans, are quite likely to be brought to Russia in spring," Onishchenko told parliament.
He said West Siberia was volatile to getting a new, more deadly strain, but that no bird flu virus strains had mutated in Russia that could be passed from human to human yet.
Earlier, Director of the Institute of Virology Dmitry Lvov called on medical insitutions to prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic. He said Russia must immediately start developing vaccines against bird flu on the basis of obtained strains of the virus.
"We must create a strategic reserve of anti-viral drugs, such as Remantadin and Arbidol," he said, adding that these drugs proved to be efficient against bird flu.
According to Director of the Influenza Research Institute Oleg Kiselyov, Russia has had a bird flu vaccine since May 2005, but it has yet to be tested.
"The Influenza Institute has obtained confirmed strains of a vaccine against avian influenza," he said. "We have actually had a vaccine since May."
The tests of the bird flu vaccine will start in November 2005, the expert said Tuesday.
"Twenty volunteers will participate in the tests that will be conducted in November-December 2005," he said. "If the results are successful, we will be able to start selling the vaccine as early as March 2006."
MOSCOW, October 25 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has had a bird flu vaccine since May 2005, but has yet to be tested, a health official said Tuesday.
"The Influenza Institute has obtained confirmed strains of a vaccine against avian influenza. We have actually had a vaccine since May," Director of the Influenza Research Institute Oleg Kiselyov said.
Officials have confirmed that there is the possibility of a bird flu pandemic occurring in Russia.
"Since 1997 we have had regular outbreaks, but there has been no uncontrollable pandemic, so we still have time to prepare. But we can be certain that there will be a pandemic," Kiselyov said, adding that there is a strong chance of human infection.
The director of the Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Bioorganic Chemistry Institute, Vadim Ivanov, said different strains of the virus are continually appearing, and sometimes they can affect people. Among people, the bird flu virus is less virulent than other more common viruses, he said.
The bird flu vaccine will not be able to be administered for another six months, "and even this isn't certain. It must be tested," Ivanov said.
There is likely to be an epidemic of common influenza in December-January, he said.
"Twenty million people have received flu inoculations so far," Ivanov said.
Moscow: A prototype bird flu vaccine developed by Russian researchers is to be tested on human volunteers next month, the director of a research centre said.
The vaccine will be tested on 20 volunteers. The tests begin in November and we hope to finish them by December," said Oleg Kiselev, head of the flu research centre in Saint Petersburg, according to the Ria Novosti news agency.
"The vaccine was created in May, but has not yet been tested," he said, adding that should the tests prove successful, the vaccine could go on sale from March.
The only risk for the volunteers would be having a fever of 38 degrees Celsius (100 degress Fahrenheit). "If 3.5 percent of the volunteers have this reaction, we will not use the vaccine," Kiselev said, adding that the ideal volunteer would be a 25-year-old man.
"At the moment, we have no vaccine against bird flu. We have only prototypes," Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief epidemiologist, was quoted as saying by the Interfax agency.
A prototype vaccine would be a crucial step in the global response to the deadly strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus, which scientists fear could cause a human flu pandemic if it mutates to allow person-to-person transmission.
Onishchenko also said Russia would be vulnerable to a new outbreak of bird flu next spring.
"It is highly likely that in spring 2006 the bird flu virus, including the H5N1 strain that is dangerous for humans, could be brought to Russian territory by birds migrating from Asia, China, Africa and the Mediterranean," Onishchenko was cited by news agencies as saying.
The minister for health and social development, Mikhail Zurabov, said Russia wants to put the fight against bird flu on the agenda of the next summit of the Group of Eight industrialized powers, which will be held in Saint-Petersburg next summer.
BANGKOK, Oct. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- A hospital of western province of Kanchanaburi on Tuesday quarantined three suspected bird flu patients, local media reported.
They are all from the same district where the country's 13th avian influenza victim contracted the disease.
"The three patients have fevers, coughs and flu symptoms but they initially tested negative for the H5N1 virus but we're now awaiting more lab results from the Medical Science Department in Bangkok," local news paper The Nation online news quoted Dr Sayan Booranawanit, director of the Phahol Polphayuhasena Hospital in Kanchanaburi as saying.
All three patients, including two girls aged four and nine and one 48-year-old woman, have been given Tamiflu, the only known remedy for H5N1.
The Health Ministry has instructed hospitals nationwide to immediately quarantine patients showing bird flu symptoms in "red zones", and to provide them with Tamiflu even if they have not yet tested positive for avian influenza, said Sayan.
Avian influenza has spread to more than half of Thailand, with 39 provinces reporting confirmed or suspected cases of fresh bird-flu infections.
OTTAWA, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The global fight against a flu pandemic could be badly undermined if governments fail to prevent mass panic in the event of widespread fatalities, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said on Tuesday.
More than 60 people in Southeast Asia have died of bird flu and the deadly strain has spread to Europe. Experts say the world is overdue for a flu pandemic and predict the most likely cause will be an animal strain which mutates.
"Among the most profound challenges we face is communication with our own citizens. Public fear, and bad information, could all too easily snowball into panic," Martin told an international conference on combating pandemics.
"It would complicate our collective response to a pandemic immeasurably and magnify its potential impact," Martin said. "Our best antidote will be clear, honest and consistent assessment of the risks we face, the ability to swiftly gather information, and to speak with one voice in frank and constructive terms -- early and continuously."
Thousands of Italian poultry farmers demonstrated in northeastern cities on Tuesday, demanding action against "irrational fear" over bird flu, which has cut national consumption of chicken by more than half.
Martin said a pandemic would require unprecedented coordination and cooperation among countries.
"Our planning and preparation for a pandemic will inarguably help to put us in a better position to respond to other emerging diseases, to natural disasters and to threats of bioterrorism we may face in the future," he said.
Martin said the world should remember what happened during an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which killed nearly 800 people following an outbreak in China in 2002 and exposed weaknesses in some nations' health systems.
Among the countries more severely affected by SARS were Canada and Singapore.
"If many of our countries have learned the lessons of SARS, that will tell us that each of us has more to do," Martin said.
A vaccine against a future flu pandemic will not be available until scientists identify the exact strain.
Mexican Health Minister Julio Frenk said the best way to ensure sufficient vaccines in a pandemic was to transfer the necessary technology now to nations such as Mexico, India, China and Brazil.
"(This) is an idea whose time has come because it's clear that with current capabilities, we would never even remotely meet the needs of the entire world," he told Reuters and Reuters Television in a recent interview.
Martin said Canada supported "a proposal to expand our projected vaccine supply" but gave no details.
Two leading food health officials complained on Monday that the focus on a possible pandemic was diverting resources away from the campaign to curb the current outbreak in birds, in part by paying compensation to poor farmers.
KUWAIT CITY: While the government has drafted a contingency plan to deal with Bird flu, the Ministry of Health (MoH) on Monday informed the Health Affairs Committee at the Parliament that it has inked a deal to import vaccine to combat the deadly virus. "The vaccine is expected to be delivered by Feb 2006. Kuwait has taken all measures to ensure that the virus does not reach here," a senior official of MoH told the panel. The convener of the committee MP Faisal Muslim said Undersecretary of Ministry of Health Issa Khalifa assured the committee Monday that the Ministry of Health in cooperation with Public Authority for Agricultural Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) has taken all the necessary precautions to combat avian flu. He said the committee is monitoring closely developments pertaining to bird flu and that contingency plans have been put in place to tackle any emergency which may crop up.
Muslim went on to add that officials of the Ministry of Health briefed the committee about the agreement to import the vaccine, saying the ministry is ready to do whatever it takes to prevent the spread of the disease even if it means stopping import of all kinds of birds from across the world. Some sources said the vaccine is being purchased from South Korea.
He said such measures have been taken by a number of countries, including Oman and Egypt. Muslim observed that the ministry informed the committee that it will launch a campaign to educate people about the disease. "People should not unduly panic. They should realize that avian flu is like any other disease and we reiterate our commitment to take on this virus and have taken the necessary precautions."
The Undersecretary of Health described the meeting a success and said that participants talked about the contingency plan, noting "One of the steps taken by the government to tackle this virus is to stop import of birds from countries which have been hit by the bird flu."
Asked whether the ministry was confident that the medicine would be delivered on time, the undersecretary said "this issue was discussed at length by the Parliament committee which assured us that it will do everything in its capacity to ensure that we receive the vaccine on time." The ministry is working in tandem with PAAAFR to inspect farms, adding daily visits will be arranged to farms to make sure they remain disease-free. "There is a law in place which prevents us from importing medicine other than the manufacturing country but we relaxed the law because human lives are more important than anything else." On Monday PAAAFR officials took part in a seminar at PAAAFR headquarters, which shed light on bird flu and thrashed out the contingency plan in detail. Experts also presented their views on the virus and proposed effective means to prevent it. However, officials refused to divulge details of the plan saying the were not authorized to speak to the media.
The official also reiterated that there were no cases of bird flu in Kuwait, adding "bird flu is a global problem and we are taking all precautionary measures to ensure that the disease does not reach Kuwait." On Sunday the Director of Animal Health Department at PAAAFR laid to rest fears that bird flu had reached Kuwait after forty birds were found dead on a platform at Ahmadi sparking concerns that Kuwait may have become the latest destination for bird flu. Earlier an expert told the Arab Times that H5N1 virus is sensitive to high temperatures and can be neutralized by common disinfectants like Clorox. "It cannot survive Kuwait’s summer weather. Migratory birds are potential carriers and Kuwait has no capability to identify such virus," he added. Al-Khalifa said that there was a current "ban on importing frozen chicken or meat from countries where cases of the flu were reported." He stressed that there was now a round-the-clock operations room to strengthen the watch against the disease.
Agencies add: The Gulf region is at risk from the threat of bird flu, a Bahraini official warned Monday, following an emergency meeting in Riyadh of the Gulf Cooperation Council to draw up a common strategy to combat the deadly virus. Kazem Hashim al-Hashemi, Bahrain’s deputy agriculture minister told reporters that Gulf countries were vulnerable to the spread of the disease since the area served as a passageway for migratory birds. "The threat is there... the area lies in the pathway of migrating birds," he said. Senior officials from the agriculture ministries from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates met at the GCC headquarters in Riyadh. "The objective is the cooperation of GCC states for the adoption of the suitable measures to protect member states from bird flu," said Hashemi. He said this includes conducting surveys of bird and poultry populations in member states, sharing information and implementing an early warning system.
Individually GCC states have recently adopted measures to prevent the spread of avian flu, including the ban of birds, poultry and their products mainly from countries in Asia and Europe where bird flu cases have surfaced. Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE, urged residents Sunday to handover live poultry or to slaughter them and gave vendors of live poultry within city limits until Monday to close shop. Some countries, including Saudi Arabia, have also earmarked millions of dollars to buy drugs to combat the disease. Kuwait’s PAAAFR Deputy Director, Dr Muhammad Al-Mhanna, shed the light on a plan endorsed by Kuwait to encounter the epidemic. He said an emergency team and an operation room were set up to receive information about the epidemic around the clock. He added that a special committee to monitor bird imports had been formed in cooperation with the health ministry, the customs department and the civil aviation directorate.
OTTAWA, TORONTO -- Roche Canada has taken the highly unusual step of halting the sale of Tamiflu, thought to be the best defence against an avian influenza pandemic, after the drug maker experienced a higher-than-normal demand for the antiviral medication.
Under the heading of "urgent," the firm sent a letter to Canadian pharmacies, stating that shipments of the drug oseltamivir phosphate will end immediately until flu season begins.
When flu season hits, typically from December to March, nursing homes and other institutions will get priority, it wrote.
"Roche Canada has decided to proactively manage the Tamiflu inventory," it wrote in the letter obtained by The Globe and Mail. "This flu season, the company will prioritize distribution of Tamiflu to those patients most at risk of developing serious influenza-related complications once the influenza season begins."
Lothar Dueck, president of the Coalition of Manitoba Pharmacies, called the move unprecedented, saying he has never seen a drug maker suspend sales of its own product in his 28 years as a pharmacist.
"Enormous amounts of the capsules are being gobbled up and hoarded by panicking Canadians," Mr. Dueck said in a telephone interview from Ottawa last night, where he is attending a meeting of health ministers from around the world discussing pandemic preparations.
"The drug company is doing what our government should be doing -- it's protecting the Canadian drug supply."
A Health Canada spokesman could not be reached for comment last night.
Mr. Dueck said he believed Internet pharmacies, which ship across Canada and also to the United States, were responsible for a chunk of the increased sales.
However, Andy Troszok, president of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, which represents Internet or mail-order pharmacies, said there has only been a marginal, or 5-per-cent, increase in sales of Tamiflu, which can be obtained only with a doctor's prescription.
Some 4,061 prescriptions were written for Tamiflu in September, compared with 421 in the same month last year, according to Sue Cavallucci of IMS Health, a private health-information and consulting-services company that serves the pharmaceutical and health-care industries.
Widely used in nursing homes during flu season, the drug attacks the influenza virus and stops it from spreading inside the body. More than 53,000 prescriptions were written for it in February and March this year, according to IMS.
Yesterday, federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said drug companies may be forced to share their patents if world production of antiviral medicine and vaccines is to keep pace with demand.
"There are countries that have the capacity to manufacture vaccines or antivirals that we actually need to assist with technology transfer, which is a euphemism for loosening patent laws," he said yesterday at the opening of an international conference on pandemic preparation in Ottawa.
The conference, which attracted health ministers and other officials from 30 countries, will focus on that kind of issue, Mr. Dosanjh said.
Dr. Lee Jong-wook, the director-general of the World Health Organization, who is also attending the conference, said Roche has agreed to share its licence for Tamiflu with other drug companies to help increase supply. It has also promised to give 30 million capsules, free of charge, to the WHO to send to the "front lines" of a pandemic.
"When there is a real need of Tamiflu, the basic instinct will be this is for our people," Dr. Lee said. "It is a very unnatural act to share these precious small quantities of medicine with others."
In Canada, the federal, provincial and territorial governments have stockpiled 35 million Tamiflu pills, Julian Beltrame, manager of media relations for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said last night.
Some physicians -- who expect to be on the front line treating patients with the disease -- have amassed pills to be taken as a prophylaxis, to prevent the disease.
One of them is Donald Low, chief microbiologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, who will be at the forefront of an avian flu pandemic.
Dr. Low, who is also the medical director of the Ontario Public Health Lab, said he paid for 100 pills out of his own pocket, even though the capsules are covered under most private health plans.
"I thought about this a couple of years ago and I kept saying, 'I'm going to do this,' . . . and finally I did it," Dr. Low said yesterday.
OTTAWA -- Canada's prime minister on Tuesday stressed the importance of helping Southeast Asian nations fight bird flu as health ministers from around the world said the first line of defense against a pandemic is at the region's poultry farms, while the second line may come down to ethics and politics.
At a two-day conference that began Monday, some officials discussed whether they might have to break international patent regulations to produce generic versions of Tamiflu _ one of the only drugs effective against the virus _ if it came down to saving their civilians.
"A suggestion that's being made by some countries is that there are countries that have the capacity to manufacture the vaccine, that we actually need to assist them with technology transfers," Canada's Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh told a news conference. He said technology transfers was "a euphemism for loosening the patent laws."
He was referring to India, whose health officials are weighing whether there is enough risk of bird flu spreading in their impoverished nation to invoke a licensing clause to lift Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche's patent of Tamiflu.
The drug is one of only two believed to be effective against the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 62 people in Asia since 2003.
"It may not be resolved here, but there are countries out there that are saying they will defy patent protections _ and we couldn't be judgmental if people are dying," Dosanjh said.
The World Trade Organization in 2003 decided to allow governments to override patents during national health crises, though no member state has yet invoked the clause.
Ministers from 30 countries and the heads of the World Health Organization and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization at the conference said containing the avian flu that has hit Vietnam and Thailand the hardest was the top priority.
Most recently, Russia, Turkey, Britain and Romania have reported the disease in birds.
"Our first line of defense should be attacking the problem at the poultry level," Dr. Alejandro Thiermann, adviser to the director general of the World Organization for Animal Health, said at the opening session Monday.
"So far, it is our opinion that the international community has drastically underinvested in the veterinary infrastructure required to support this vitally important program."
Before the officials went into closed sessions for most of Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin emphasized the importance of helping Southeast Asian nations.
"The simple fact is that many impoverished families and farmers may consider it too risky to report sick animals _ they're the source of their food as well as their livelihood, so it's often customary to kill animals that get sick, to be eaten or sold," he said.
"When sicknesses are reported in these areas, local officials often lack the capacity to respond," he added.
Martin also said the current meeting would help governments respond better to potential calamities such as "other emerging diseases, to natural disasters and to threats of bioterrorism we may face in the future."
Officials insisted the obsession with Tamiflu must not overshadow preventing the H5N1 strain from mutating into a human strain that could kill millions worldwide.
"As the world takes prudent measures to prepare for a major human pandemic, greater measures must be taken to stop this disease, in its tracks, at its source, in animals," said FAO Director-General Dr. Jacques Diouf. "This is very possible. It can be done."
On Tuesday, Mexico's health minister Julio Frenk was expected to call on wealthier nations to set aside 10 percent of their stores of antivirals for the developing ones.
"Just imagine the ethical, political and security implications of a world where only rich countries have access to lifesaving drugs or vaccines, and the rest of the world stands while they march toward death," Frenk told The Canadian Press. "That is an unsustainable scenario."
WHO Director General Lee Jong-Wook said some countries were suggesting that devoting 5 percent of their stores was more in line with reality, but conceded some countries likely would horde drugs in the face of a true pandemic.
"In time, when there's a real need for Tamiflu, the basic instinct will be, `This is for our people,' and it's an unnatural act to share this precious small quantity of medicines with others," Lee said. That is why, he said: "It makes a lot of sense to try and put out the fire out there, rather than waiting for this wave to reach you."
Diouf said it would take some $1 billion to make a dent in efforts to bring the H5N1 virus under control in Southeast Asia, noting that 140 million chickens and ducks had been culled, costing those countries $10 billion and devastating rural communities.
The 62nd death _ that of a 23-year-old man in Indonesia who died Sept. 30_ was confirmed by a Hong Kong lab on Monday and announced by Indonesian Health Ministry official Hariadi Wibisono. The country has had four deaths from bird flu, all on the island of Java.
Ottawa, Canada (dpa) - More than 30 nations at an international conference on stopping bird flu agreed Tuesday to put U.N. agencies in charge of the global fight, a German delegate said.
Under the plan, the World Health Organisation (WHO) would take the reins in preparing the response for any human pandemic, said Franz- Josef Bindert of Germany's health ministry.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health would lead the fight among animals, Bindert told Deutsche Press-Agentur dpa on the Ottawa conference's sidelines.
Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia and has spread to Europe in recent weeks, apparently through infected migratory birds. Experts fear the virus could mix with human flu and mutate to create a pandemic that could kill millions.
Canada's prime minister told the closing session that stopping bird flu requires unprecedented international cooperation and aid by rich nations to the countries most at risk.
Pointing to a key challenge in the Asian-centred outbreak, Paul Martin said many poor families and farmers may consider it too risky to report sick animals - their source of food and their livelihood.
"So despite our best efforts at containment, this disease, like others, could continue to spread," Martin warned a meeting of health ministers from more than 30 countries in Ottawa.
The aim of the two-day conference was to devise a global strategy to contain the bird flu virus that has killed more than 60 people, most of them in Vietnam, and millions of fowl.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed her support for the goals after briefly meeting delegates.
"We vowed that we will do everything that we can to support a programme that gets governments to take this issue very seriously," Rice told reporters.
Martin said the virus was mostly likely to spread in parts of the world with the least ability to combat it, increasing chances that the it could mutate and spread to humans.
"We have a collective obligation to mitigate this risk," he said.
Martin urged richer countries to share their antiviral drugs and vaccines with poorer countries, such as those in Southeast Asia where the bird flu virus is believed to be endemic.
Tamiflu, an anti-viral drug produced by Swiss company Roche, is currently the only drug thought to be able to protect people against the H5N1 bird flu virus. It can't stop people from catching bird flu, but it acts as an inhibitor and can prevent its spread provided it is taken early enough.
Some governments have criticized Roche for its reluctance to allow generic versions of Tamiflu to be produced.
Infections in birds emerge in Romania, Turkey, and Britain, boosting public fear. Meanwhile, countries are scrambling to stockpile antivirals
It's highly infectious, and it's spreading across Europe. The predicted avian influenza pandemic has yet to arrive, but the Continent is suffering from a bad case of bird-flu panic. And the confirmation on Oct. 24 that a parrot held in quarantine in Britain died from the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu -- which has killed millions of birds and 61 people in Asia -- has only intensified the public's fear.
Most avian influenza viruses don't infect humans, but the H5N1 strain of bird flu can be passed directly from birds to people. The fear is H5N1 will mutate into a new virus that is easily transferable from human to human (see BW Online, 10/9/05, "Avian Flu Under the Microscope").
PLUNGING POULTRY SALES. Even before the case emerged in Britain, the mood in Europe was one of mounting hysteria. "Bird Flu Will Hit Britain and Kill 50,000" Britain's Daily Mail newspaper screeched in a recent headline. Pharmacies across Europe are selling out of Tamiflu, the prescription antiviral shown to be most effective against the disease. Online auction site eBay (EBAY ) even pulled an auction for the drug after bidding for a single course of treatment hit $180 in Britain (see BW Online, 10/20/05, "Two Stocks Lifted by Bird Flu").
William Burns, the head of Switzerland's Roche Pharmaceuticals (RHHBY ), which makes Tamiflu, summed up the mood on an Oct. 19 conference call when he noted: "Following four ducks in Romania carrying avian flu, Europe has gone mad".
And how. Poultry sales have plummeted by 20% to 40% across Europe, leading some supermarkets such as Britain's Asda (a subsidiary of Wal-Mart (WMT )) to launch marketing campaigns assuring customers their poultry is safe to eat. Chickens are under house arrest in Germany and the Netherlands. And Britain is calling for a centralized poultry database to help avert any potential outbreaks.
TV DINNERS. Sniffer dogs check passengers from Romania and Turkey as they arrive at Heathrow to detect banned meat, live or dead birds, feathers, and eggs in passenger luggage -- even though you can't get bird flu from eating chicken or eggs. Italy has banned imports of live poultry from Croatia, Romania, and other Balkan countries. Poland has outlawed live bird markets and pigeon races.
In an effort to reassure the public (and boost falling poultry sales), both Greek Health Minister Nikitas Kaklamanis and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan separately tucked into chicken dishes on live television. And newspapers across Europe have taken to printing detailed maps tracing bird-migration routes.
Sensing the rising public fear, the European Union has called emergency meetings on avian flu. Describing the virus strain as a serious, global health threat if it shifts from birds to people and one "that requires a coordinated international reaction," the EU has called on national governments to step up preparations in the event of a pandemic. In the meantime, it urges the public to stay calm. "I don't think we have to enter into panic," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said at a press conference.
FLYING TRANSMISSION. Too late. Europe first went into a state of alert three weeks ago, after the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed outside the EU's borders in Russia, Romania, and Turkey. Although cases of bird flu have been reported in Greece and Croatia, tests are still pending to see if it's the more aggressive H5N1 strain.
The parrot found in Britain was part of a shipment of 148 birds imported from South America that were held in a quarantine unit at Heathrow Airport with 216 exotic birds from Taiwan. According to a spokesperson from Britain's Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Dept., it's possible the parrot contracted the virus by "sharing air space" with the Taiwanese birds. Following the discovery, European ministers were meeting in Brussels on Oct. 25 to discuss a one-month ban on all imports of live captive birds.
The EU already has taken some steps to avert the spread of avian flu. It has banned imports of poultry meat, untreated poultry meat products, and live birds from countries affected by H5N1. And it has set up early detection systems along the migratory paths of birds to prevent the possible contamination of domestic flocks (see BW Online, 10/6/05,"'Eerie' Discoveries about Flu").
DRUG SHORTAGE. Moreover, the EU plans to hold a two-day influenza pandemic preparedness exercise later this year. The simulation of human influenza outbreak will focus on collecting and comparing surveillance information across 25 member states. EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou also proposed setting aside $1.2 billion to purchase antiviral drugs and vaccines in the event of a pandemic.
Despite all the attention and action, there are signs that Europe is still ill-prepared for a possible pandemic. The World Health Organization recommends governments keep stocks of antiviral drugs and regular human flu vaccines to inoculate at least 25% of their populations. Yet Kyprianou concedes that "more than half" of the 25 EU governments lack sufficient stocks of antiviral drugs. European officials say the 25 nations in the EU, as well as Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein, have only 10 million doses of antivirals now for an area of almost 500 million people and will have only 46 million doses by the end of 2007.
Among the best-prepared countries are Britain and France. The British government has so far stockpiled 2.5 million courses of antiviral drugs and has ordered a total of 14.6 million, enough to treat roughly 25% of the population. In addition, Britain's Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, announced plans to purchase enough vaccines to cover every person in Britain should a pandemic take hold.
PANIC PANDEMIC. Although a vaccine can't be developed until the exact strain of the flu is known, the government has invited drug manufacturers to bid for contracts to supply the potential vaccine. By offering advance contracts, Donaldson believes manufacturers will be able to ramp up sufficient production capacity before a pandemic strikes. France also has stockpiled enough Tamiflu to cover 24% of its population and has ordered 200 million face masks.
The newly created European Centre for Disease Prevention & Control stresses that right now the risk to public health is minimal. But with demand for antivirals exceeding supply and a poor public understanding of the disease and how it's spread, the pandemic of panic may be just beginning.
NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 25: When it comes to India, Swiss pharma giant Roche does not have a ‘‘product patent’’ for Tamiflu, its highly prized anti-influenza drug, the only one known to be effective against bird flu. Roche has a patent in most countries valid until 2016 but has been a bit slow tapping the Indian market.
This means Indian companies can now manufacture generic versions of the drug for Indian markets but cannot export these products.
Confirming this to The Indian Express, Dr Ashwani Kumar, Drug Controller General of India, said: ‘‘Roche does not have a product patent in India and international patent is not enough according to Indian patent laws. The companies can manufacture generic versions of the drug medicine by filing a licensing application with the government.’’
But the government hasn’t received any applications from Indian companies yet.
Speaking to The Indian Express from Basel, Switzerland, spokesperson for Roche Martina Rupp said the firm had a patent pending in India. ‘‘This is not about patents but it is about manufacturing capacity. Our doors are open for companies to come and have a fact-based discussion with us,’’ she said. ‘‘The manufacturing of Tamiflu is lengthy and expensive and we have a lot of experience in it.’’
Ranbaxy, which is talking to Roche, says it’s not just looking at the Indian market.
‘‘We have approached Roche for a non-exclusive license for all countries. The issue cannot be looked at country wise,’’ said Ramesh L. Adige, ED for Corporate Affairs.
According to him, however, drugs for India should not be a problem.
‘‘We are willing to manufacture the drugs with cooperation with the government of India,’’ he added.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Amar Lulla, Joint Managing Director of Cipla - which said it would be ready with a generic version by early next year - agreed that manufacturing in India should not be a problem under the new scenario.
Last week Ranbaxy and Cipla both wrote to Roche expressing their desire to manufacture Tamiflu’s generic version. Roche had earlier said it wants to remain the drug’s lone manufacturer but has shown flexibility following international pressure.
In a statement last week, it said it’s ready to license the drug to generic companies across the world.
EU bans bird import
BRUSSELS:The EU has banned imports of pet birds after a parrot died of the H5N1 strain in Britain. Indonesia, meanwhile, confirmed that a fourth person had died of bird flu. China said hundreds of farm geese had died after a fresh outbreak . - Reuters
BEIJING (Reuters) - China has reported deadly bird flu in chickens and ducks in a village in the central province of Hunan, on the heels of another outbreak in the east of the country, and declared it had been brought under control.
China notified the United Nations of the latest outbreak in Xiangtan County -- near the provincial capital, Changsha -- on Tuesday, according to a notice on the Web site of the World Organisation for Animal Health (www.oie.int).
The World Health Organisation has said the H5N1 strain of bird flu is endemic in poultry in China and across much of Asia, and it could only be a matter of time before it develops the ability to pass easily from human to human.
China has reported no human cases so far.
An Agriculture Ministry official in Beijing confirmed the Hunan outbreak but gave no details. The notice said that 687 chickens and ducks showed signs of illness, 545 had died and a total of 2,487 birds were culled in the outbreak in Hunan county, also famous in China as Mao Zedong's birthplace.
"The outbreak has been effectively controlled," the Agriculture Daily newspaper said, quoting the national bird flu laboratory as saying it had identified the strain as the deadly
H5N1.
On Tuesday China reported another outbreak among farm geese in the eastern province of Anhui and said that it, too, had been brought under control with no reported human infections.
China had also notified Hong Kong of the outbreak, the government said. The former British colony, which reverted to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, gets much of its food from the neighbouring southern Chinese province of Guangdong, which borders Hunan.
Hong Kong does not currently buy any poultry meat or live birds from Hunan but will bar any such imports from the province as a precaution, the government added.
"We will monitor the development of the situation in the coming weeks," the government said.
There have been other recent outbreaks in far-western Xinjiang, Qinghai and in northern Inner Mongolia.
China's sheer size and its attempts to conceal the emergence of the SARS virus in 2003 have prompted fears among some experts that it has had more bird flu cases than officially recorded.
But experts and U.N. officials have said they believe China is better prepared and more open than in 2003.
(Reporting by Kim Coghill in Hong Kong and Judy Hua in Beijing)
BANGKOK - With hardly a hint of shame, voices from the Western world's political establishment are exhibiting a view that seems to suggest the lives of people in the developed world matter more than those that populate the other side of the planet.
A typical example is Chuck Schumer, a member of the US Senate from New York, who has even issued a threat to pressure the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Roche, to give up its right to protect the patent on Tamiflu, the only drug currently capable of fighting the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.
As Schumer sees it, Roche should license out production to generic manufacturers since it lacks the capacity to produce sufficient amounts of its patented drug. This comes in wake of
fears that the world could be hit by a global pandemic if the bird flu virus mutates into one that could be passed among humans.
"If they don't begin to actually license the patent for Tamiflu to dramatically increase worldwide production, I am going to pursue a legislative remedy a month from today," he said in a statement, according to media reports from Washington DC. "Roche is putting their own interest ahead of world health. They should not be slow-walking this process when we have a potential pandemic that could occur at any time."
By Thursday, Roche had caved in, agreeing to give the license to manufacture Tamil flu to four US generic drug manufacturers.
Such enlightened thinking, that public health matters more than Roche's profit margins, has come only after reports that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has haunted Southeast Asia since January last year, has winged its way into Europe.
European health authorities felt that such a turn of events was sufficient grounds to label bird flu a "global threat". And to save its citizens from a potential pandemic - the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that a deadly influenza virus from bird flu could kill millions - European Union (EU) officials have started talks with the pharmaceutical industry.
Asian countries that have long been affected by bird flu - such as Thailand where 13 people have died since the virus began infecting the local poultry population last year and Vietnam, the worst hit with 43 deaths - have not had the same luxury of behaving like political leaders in the US or EU.
For they, like others in the developing world, are well aware of the fierce defense mounted by the US and the EU to protect the patents of drugs produced by their pharmaceutical giants, despite such medicines being desperately needed to save the lives of millions in the Third World.
"The reaction in the US and the US is not only double standards at play but one of absurdity too," Nicola Bullard of Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based think tank, told IPS. "It is absurd because they want Roche to give up its rights on the patent for a disease that is only a threat and doesn't exist as a human pandemic."
There has been no hint of sympathy from the leaders in the US toward people in the developing world who are directly affected by pandemics and have limited access to expensive drugs produced by pharmaceutical companies, she added.
Patients in the developing world who are victims of such discrimination are those suffering from diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis (TB). AIDS killed more than 3 million people last year, the majority of them in Africa, while TB killed 2 million and malaria 1 million.
Only last month, the humanitarian agency, Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF - Doctors without Borders), wrote to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about the consequences of greed being placed above human lives when it comes to diseases that affect Third World people.
"The HIV/AIDS crises has shown the urgent need to ensure that essential medicines are available at affordable prices," MSF wrote to Pascal Lamy, the new director general of the WTO. "[This will worsen] as the impact of patent protection on HIV programs becomes [more] apparent in the coming years."
One of Southeast Asia's poorest countries, Cambodia, is a case in point. As a result of becoming a new member of the WTO last year, it is facing the prospect of losing access to cheap generic anti-AIDS drugs for its HIV patients due to the pressure applied by the US and EU to protect the world's pharma giants. Cambodia has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the Asia-Pacific region, with nearly 1.9% of adults infected with the killer virus.
Currently, not even half of the 6 million people who need anti-AIDS drugs have access to them in the developing world, resulting in early death for those infected with the AIDS virus. In contrast, people with HIV in the developed world are not troubled by a premature death due to the availability of anti-retroviral drugs they can afford.
But this is not the first time the world is witnessing leaders in the West conveniently ignoring a principle they have sanctified - that patents of the pharma giants must be protected - as a result of public-health crises in their midst.
Countries such as Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the United States have resorted to violating international rules governing intellectual property rights when faced with public-health emergencies at home.
That was achieved by these governments resorting to "compulsory licensing", which is a measure in international commerce that permits a country to break a patent on a drug and get local generic manufacturers to produce a drug. To compensate the patent holder, the generic producer offers a reasonable royalty on the sale of the generic product.
"Until joining the North American Free Trade [Agreement - NAFTA] in 1992, Canada routinely issued compulsory licenses for pharmaceuticals, paying a 4% royalty rate on the net sales price," a UN agency stated in a study some years ago on intellectual property rights. "Between 1969 and 1992 such licenses were granted in 613 cases for importing or manufacturing generic medicines.
"In the United States, compulsory licensing has been used as a remedy in more than 100 antitrust case settlements, including cases involving antibiotics, synthetic steroids and several biotechnology patents."
Yet as analysts such as Bullard argue, governments in the developing world are denied this privilege, as if the lives of the poor should matter less than those in the affluent West.
The case being made by Schumer will only reinforce such a belief, she adds. "There is no getting away from the fact that public goods and public health must take precedence over a pharmaceutical corporation's profits."
(Inter Press Service)
Researchers studying bird flu survivors in Indonesia think the virus might be far more treatable than initially believed.
Eight-year-old Firdaus Baskara is a case in point.
Authorities quarantined him last month after his parents noticed he was coughing and had a fever. Then they learned his aunt had tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
She died, her condition going rapidly from typical flu symptoms to pneumonia.
Once the pneumonia strikes, bird flu victims can die within three days. Doctors have learned the virus zeroes in on lung tissue, causing the lungs to fill with mucous and blood and drowning the victim.
"With the bird flu, pneumonia quickly develops. It can be very lethal," said Dr. Ilham Patu of the Sulianti Saroso Infectious Diseases Hospital in Jakarta.
But Firdaus only showed mild symptoms, and this has doctors thinking the answer lies treating the patient quickly.
"Since the virus is very lethal, patients must be treated as soon as possible. Many don't survive because they are brought in too late," Patu said.
Asian doctors say what works is treating the patient as soon as possible with the antiviral drug Tamiflu and, in some cases, giving vitamins to boost the patient's immune system.
That combination worked for Zeki Zaenuddin. He tested positive for the virus, but after treatment, no H5N1 could be found in his system.
"I had heavy fever, but I feel much better now," he said.
One problem facing doctors is there have been fewer than 100 human cases of H5N1 bird flu so far. This doesn't give them many cases to study.
There's also no guarantee that if the virus mutates into a strain that is easily transmissible between humans, it will work in the same way.
Ominously, a strain of H5N1 in Vietnam has shown some evidence of being resistant to Tamiflu, although the findings are based on one case.
Health experts also worry a general viral resistance to Tamiflu is growing in Japan. Doctors there routinely prescribe Tamiflu to treat influenza.
Tamiflu comes in pill form. Some doctors want pharmaceutical companies to develop an intravenous antiviral drug, saying it would have a faster onset and help those who might have related stomach problems.
However, with fears about bird flu rising in Canada in some circles, private demand for Tamiflu has risen to the point where manufacturer Roche Canada said it was suspending shipments until December.
With a report from CTV's Steve Chao