World Ponders Action On Bird Flu
U.N. officials said Tuesday they are exploring ways to step up the production of a vaccine in case bird flu mutates and sparks a human influenza pandemic.
David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza, said "it will take six months to build up a stockpile of vaccines," but health authorities are worried that might be too long if a pandemic flu strain emerges.
"We will need to have vaccines much more quickly than six months," Nabarro said, adding that the World Health Organization and governments are exploring how to "pull together vaccine manufacturers" to see if it can be done more quickly.
Meanwhile, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said the likelihood of a human flu pandemic is very high as he began a tour of Southeast Asia to coordinate plans to combat bird flu.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in many parts of Asia since 2003 and jumped to humans, killing 60 people, mostly through direct contact with sick fowl.
While there have been no known cases of person-to-person transmission, World Health Organization officials and other experts have been warning that the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people. In a worst-case scenario, they say millions of people could die.
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Three influenza pandemics have occurred over the last century and "the likelihood of another is very high, some say even certain," Leavitt said Monday after meeting with Thai health officials to review the country's preparations against the disease.
"The World Health Organization as we speak is looking at options to get a scaling up of vaccine production capacity," Nabarro said.
U.N. experts briefed journalists at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization about the global bird influenza situation.
Nabarro said that because viruses mutate, it is not known how efficient existing vaccines will be in case of a human pandemic.
Louise Fresco, an agriculture official at the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization, said experts are focusing for now on prevention.
She said initially that the U.N. agencies would be seeking $175 million — "a fraction of what is needed" — for initial efforts aimed at combating bird flu and preventing a possible jump to people.
Leavitt, accompanied by the director of WHO and other top health professionals, also plans to visit Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to prepare for the anticipated public health emergency.
Leavitt's tour comes after U.S. President George W. Bush last month established the "International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza" to coordinate a global strategy against bird flu and other types of influenza.
Leavitt said "containment" was the first line of defense against the illness, encouraging countries to step up development and production of vaccines and strengthen efforts to detect any cases of human-to-human transmission early.
"Anywhere, the sooner we know, the faster we can respond and the more lives that will be saved," he said.