|
|
|
|
SARS schools Asia on bird
flu
By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - As public health experts lay the
groundwork to combat a possible pandemic triggered
by the lethal bird-flu virus in Asia, they have an
equally lethal infection that struck two years ago
to thank for the current state of readiness.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or
SARS, killed 774 people worldwide during an
outbreak in 2003, compelling governments to
overhaul hospitals to treat patients with the
deadly virus. In Asia, that included setting up
special wards to quarantine large numbers of
people and strengthening hospital labs to identify
the virus rapidly.
"SARS enabled the
ministries of public health [in Asia] to progress
with bird-flu pandemic prevention plans," Dr
Richard Brown, an epidemiologist at the World
Health Organization's (WHO) Western-Pacific
division, told Inter Press Service. "They all have
hospitals ready to take on a pandemic caused by
respiratory diseases."
However, the
quality of health-care services varies across
Asia, said Brown at the end of a meeting held last
week in Bangkok for public health officials from
the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations
countries and Asian powers such as China, Japan
and South Korea.
The health systems in the
advanced economies of Japan and South Korea, for
instance, clearly emerged as the best prepared to
respond to a bird-flu pandemic compared with what
prevails in poverty-stricken countries such as
Cambodia and Laos.
"The WHO needs to
support the weaker countries due to their limited
resources," said Brown.
At the same time,
the Southeast Asian country of Thailand has proven
its efficiency in another quarter - containing the
spread of the bird-flu virus among poultry through
the regular monitoring of farms. Consequently,
Bangkok is on the verge of announcing that the
country is free of the bird-flu virus, since the
last case was detected on March 15.
SARS,
which spread to human from animals, had flu-like
symptoms that included high fever, headache and
respiratory problems. It was transmitted when
infected patients coughed or sneezed, and more
than 8,000 people in over 20 countries in Asia,
Europe and the Americas became infected. So far,
the lethal avian flu has not been as contagious
among humans.
On Sunday, the death toll
from the H5N1 strain of bird flu passed the 50th
mark since outbreaks were first reported in
Southeast Asia in January 2004. The 51st victim
was an eight-year-old girl in Cambodia - the
kingdom's latest victim, a health official said.
However, it is the high fatality rate
among those who are infected by the virus that
worries public health experts. More than 60% of
people infected by the virus have died.
In
Vietnam, the worst-affected country, there have
been 36 fatalities from 60 reported cases; while
in Thailand there have been 12 deaths from 17
reported cases. In Cambodia, the only three
patients reported to have the virus have died.
It is the threat of H5N1 mutating into a
lethal virus that can be easily transmitted
between humans, as SARS was, that has made the
Geneva-based WHO raise the alarm about a possible
global pandemic. That stems from the fact that the
world still lacks a vaccine to inoculate people
from the deadly virus that evolved from bird flu.
Moreover, humans have no natural response to fight
the H5N1 virus.
This concern was
heightened following revelations this month that
another strain of the bird-flu virus - H7 - had
been detected in North Korea. "Three farms near
the capital Pyongyang had outbreaks in their
poultry," Hans-Gerhard Wagner, a senior animal
production and health officer at the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization, told IPS.
"There
is no indication still of how the virus spread,"
said Wagner following his return from North Korea,
where more than 218,000 chickens have been culled
in the infected farms. While H7 is not as lethal a
virus strain as H5N1, it is more easily
transmitted among humans, Wagner mentioned.
The fear among public health officials is
that the two virus strains in Asia may combine to
form a deadly flu that could spread rapidly,
triggering a pandemic.
Since the outbreak
in January last year, more than 140 million
chickens and ducks have been culled or died due to
avian flu in Asian countries that include Vietnam
and Thailand, the epicenter of the disease, along
with Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and China.
It was in 1997 that this lethal virus was
reported to have jumped from bird species to
people in Hong Kong, resulting in 18 people being
infected and six dying. But public health
officials have in mind another year - 1918 - when
they talk about a global pandemic. An estimated 50
million people across the world died that year
from a flu pandemic triggered by an influenza
linked to birds.
For the moment, though,
public health experts are relieved that strains of
the H5N1 virus found in countries such as Vietnam
and Thailand are part of the same group and have
not appeared strong enough to be passed between
humans as, say, SARS had.
"Even in the
human clusters under investigation, it appears
that the virus has not been passed beyond one
person," said the WHO's Brown. "But we have to
find out why it is happening and keep monitoring
the pattern of bird flu's spread."
(Inter
Press Service) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
|
|
|
