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WHO warns
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BEIJING (Reuters) - China is likely to suffer more outbreaks of bird flu among poultry and possibly people in coming winter months, a WHO official said on Thursday after China confirmed its first cases of human infection. China announced on Wednesday a woman in eastern Anhui province had died from the H5N1 avian flu strain which was suspected in the death of a 12-year-old girl last month in southern Hunan.
The strain was also confirmed in the girl's 9-year-old brother who recovered. The World Health Organisation was "seeking further information" about a possible human infection in Liaoning province in China's far north, said Henk Bekedam, WHO's chief official in Beijing. China is now the fifth country to report human deaths from H5N1, as fears grow the virus will trigger a pandemic. The Agriculture Ministry reported late on Thursday two new outbreaks of avian influenza among birds in Xiaogan, central Hubei province and Hetian city in the western region of Xinjiang, Xinhua news agency said without elaborating. "We expect there will be more poultry outbreaks to come," Bekedam told reporters, noting that the H5N1 virus that causes bird flu can survive longer in cold weather. "As long as there are poultry outbreaks, people will be exposed to the virus and we can expect that people might get infected." |
China gave blanket coverage to its first human cases of bird flu on Thursday. Newspapers carried pictures of distraught relatives of the victims, contrasting with the SARS crisis two years ago when China tried to cover up outbreaks of the epidemic in its early stages. Premier Wen Jiabao visited a Beijing medical firm on Thursday which produced a vaccine against SARS and has applied to conduct human tests of its own new bird flu vaccine. "In 2003, we defeated SARS. That will inspire us to victory over bird flu," Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying. Bekedam said he found China's response to the spreading poultry outbreaks "very encouraging". But he added that, with 14 billion domestic poultry -- 70 percent kept in backyards -- the country faced particular difficulties in containing the disease. NOTHING HIDDEN "Even when the government is very willing to fight the avian influenza, at times the information they they're getting about the poultry, especially in the backyard, might be a bit late." China has tried to contain about a dozen outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry since last month, culling millions of birds and ordering mass vaccinations of fowl. The government rejected claims it might be hiding human cases of H5N1. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said the reports were "nonsense" and "an insult to science". "We have nothing to hide and no need to do so," he told reporters. Scientists have expressed fears bird flu could make the jump from a bird disease to a human disease in large countries such as China or Indonesia and start spreading before anyone |
knew -- or before officials reported such a spread to the outside world. But David Nabarro, the U.N. coordinator for avian influenza, says he believes all the attention being paid to the issue had changed things. "In the current circumstances, no country will want to have been found to have hidden anything," Nabarro told reporters at a briefing in New York. The WHO says H5N1 is endemic in poultry flocks in several countries in Asia and that it is crucial to control the virus in birds to prevent more people becoming infected. The more humans infected, the greater the chances of the virus mutating into a form that passes easily among people. If this occurs, millions might die because they have no immunity. The virus has been confirmed to have infected 130 people in Asia, killing 67 since late 2003 when the virus resurfaced. Indonesia announced two more deaths after confirmation by a laboratory in Hong Kong, bringing the total to seven, the Health Ministry said on Thursday. Four others have survived. Experts and health officials are becoming increasingly concerned about H5N1, which made the first known jump to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, infecting 18 people and killing six. The WHO says the virus, like many influenza viruses, is steadily mutating and it also appears to have expanded its host range, infecting and killing mammal species previously considered resistant to infection with avian influenza viruses. (Additional reporting by Ade Rina in Jakarta, Laura MacInnis in New York, Maggie Fox in Washington, Kim Coghill in Hong Kong and Judy Hua in Beijing) |
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