Emergency Bird Flu Summit Opens

Food and health experts are meeting to try to identify ways to counter the deadly bird flu outbreak in Asia

February 3, 2004

The three-day summit in Rome aims to develop a strategy to tackle the virus, which has spread to nine countries.

Officials are worried in case the virus mutates and starts spreading between humans, although there is no firm evidence of this happening so far.

But the UN health agency, which is hosting the talks, has warned against "scaremongering" about the issue.

"I think it's very important at this stage that we remain calm about worst case scenarios," said Mike Ryan, head of the global epidemic response network at the World Health Organization.

"What we're dealing with at the moment is small clusters of cases associated with exposure to poultry."

As the summit began, Thailand said a seven-year-old boy had become the virus' 13th victim in Asia this year.

Nine people have died in Vietnam and four in Thailand.

Almost all are believed to have contracted the disease from direct contact with infected birds, though the source of infection for two Vietnamese sisters who died is not clear.

Millions of chickens have been slaughtered across the region to try to stop the spread of avian flu.

Aid

Deaths have only been reported in Vietnam and Thailand, but the fatal H5N1 strain has also been found among birds around the region.

Q&A Avian flu

China's Agriculture Ministry confirmed an outbreak of H5N1 in the southern Guangdong province on Tuesday, bringing to number of areas in China with suspected or firm cases of the disease to 12.

Indonesia also said on Tuesday the deadly strain of the virus has been found on its territory for the first time.

AVIAN FLU ALERT

First jumped "species barrier" from bird to human in 1997
In humans, symptoms include fever, sore throat, and cough
Types which threaten humans are influenza A subtypes H5N1 and H9N2

The UN Food and Agriculture agency has announced an emergency aid package of more than $1.5m for Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Pakistan to help them step up their disease control and surveillance systems.

The outcome of the Rome summit is expected to be announced at its end on Thursday.

Bird flu is also preoccupying the tourism ministers from the member countries of the regional South East Asian grouping, Asean, currently meeting in Laos.

Correspondents say the ministers and officials, and their counterparts from China, Japan and South Korea, are hoping that the outbreak of bird flu will not have the devastating effect on the tourism industry as Sars did last year.

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