Europe should do more to help Asian countries affected by bird flu to stop the disease from spreading, the head of the European Union's disease control agency said Thursday.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has swept through flocks and killed at least 62 people in Asia since 2003, was recently identified in birds in Russia, Turkey, Romania and Croatia. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a type that can be spread easily to and between humans.
Meanwhile, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche says it has temporarily suspended shipments of the antiviral drug Tamiflu in the United States to ensure that enough treatments are available for the regular influenza season.
EU officials announced Thursday that European scientists are developing a prototype drug — the latest group around the world to announce they are working on a potential pandemic vaccine.
It is not possible to create a functioning vaccine until a pandemic strain emerges and scientists can match it; once a strain does emerge, it could take six months to produce adequate amounts of vaccine. That process can be accelerated by experimenting with vaccines using existing bird flu strains such as H5N1 believed to be capable of spawning a human pandemic.
Also, a U.N. food agency warns against blanket poultry bans, saying they could expose global markets to price shocks. European Union health officials are holding a two-day meeting in Budapest to address the bird flu threat to humans.
In related developments:
Vietnam may produce a generic version of Tamiflu on its own if a licensing agreement cannot be reached with Roche, a health ministry official says.Indonesia says dozens of chickens that died in recent days on the resort island of Bali may have had bird flu; officials are awaiting test results. And up to 1,000 veterinary students will go house-to-house next month to look for backyard chickens infected with bird flu, Indonesia said Thursday as it stepped up its battle against the virus that has killed at least 62 people across Asia since late 2003. Authorities also were investigating a possible outbreak of the disease on the resort island of Bali, saying close to two dozen chickens have died in recent days with clinical symptoms of bird flu. "Lab tests are expected within the next week," said Nyoman Dibya, an official at the Bali livestock agency.A new bird flu outbreak has been recorded in a Siberian region hit by the disease last summer, officials say. Tests on about 90 chickens and ducks that died in the village of Rotovka came back positive for H5N1.
China's prime minister says there has been "massive culling of domestic poultry" and strict quarantines imposed to stop the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.Also, China insisted Thursday it was doing all it can to prevent the spread of bird flu and confirmed that a 12-year-old girl who died in a village that suffered an outbreak has tested negative for the virus. "The Chinese government is taking effective measures to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu," the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing Premier Wen Jiabao in the first comment by a Chinese leader since the latest outbreaks.France says tests show that a 43-year-old man does not have a deadly strain of bird flu. The man hospitalized on France's Indian Ocean island of Reunion has another type of flu and is not infected with the H5N1 virus. The man, who fell ill after a weeklong trip to Thailand, is being treated with anti-viral drugs and doctors say his condition is "satisfactory."The government said Thursday that bird flu could spread to Sri Lanka in December through migratory birds, but promised that necessary measures were already in place to avert an outbreak. Hundreds of thousands of birds from Europe winter in the shorelines, swamps, lakes and forests of this South Asian tropical island from October to March.Sweden introduced rules requiring farmers to keep poultry indoors and says chickens and turkeys should not be allowed to drink from open-air water sources such as lakes and rivers.Ethiopia has indefinitely banned poultry imports from Asia, Romania and Turkey because of bird flu and says it does not have vaccines it can use in case of an outbreak. "If the virus spreads to the country we do not have any controlling mechanisms so the only way we can protect ourselves is to be prepared," said Mulugeta Debalkew of the Agriculture Ministry.Armenia's Environment Ministry announces a ban on bird hunting starting Tuesday.Clinical trials of bird flu vaccine designed at the St. Petersburg Institute of Influenza will begin in December, according to a World Health Organization official.Australia, set to host a regional bird flu summit next week, says it would consider banning interstate travel and public gatherings in the event of a human pandemic.Five Southeast Asian countries will discuss cooperation on combating the spread of bird flu when their leaders meet in Bangkok next week, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says.