Strengthened links & mutual aid needed in face of bird flu: Interview

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, January 30, 2004

Strengthened links & mutual aid needed in face of bird flu: Interview

A People's Daily reporter had an exclusive interview with WHO representative Dr. Henk Bekedam in Beijing on January 29 regarding the bird flu breaking out in the region of Asia.

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Bird flu control

A People's Daily reporter had an exclusive interview with WHO representative Dr. Henk Bekedam in Beijing on January 29 regarding the bird flu breaking out in the region of Asia.

Question: At present, bird flu has been raging in 10 Asian countries and areas, how do you look upon the current epidemic? Do you think there is the possibility that large-scale outbreak of bird flu will lead the situation to run out of control?

Answer: At present, in some Asian areas, bird flu has been running among domestic fowls, it is big and wide in scale, it can be said that bird flu has become a regional epidemic disease. The H5N1 virus in the current bird flu will possibly spread in a trans-species way, therefore it will cause great harm to throngs of people. Fortunately, there are still not many cases of humans being infected by bird flu. Judged from the present situation, the possibility of bird flu raging among the people is limited. At present, what we are most worried about is that this kind of virus could likely generate variations. Once there are variations, the problem would become serious, and the epidemic would possibly prevail on a large scale among the people.

Q: Have virus variations been discovered now?

A: Not yet, but it merits our close attention.

Q: To deal specifically with the current bird flu epidemic, what should we do?

A: On the one hand, we should exterminate all infected domestic fowls and do everything we can to reduce the possibility for the rage of the virus. This is a fairly big project, it needs a lot of human resources and is rather difficult to do, but it must be done; on the other hand, it is necessary to reduce contacts between domestic birds and people, especially between infected birds and people. At present, the World Health Organization (WHO) is stepping up research on vaccine for the prevention and control of bird flu in case there is urgent need. Once bird flu is raging among crowds of people, it is necessary to give large groups of susceptible crowds of people injection of vaccines. The development of vaccines takes time, the production of vaccines by a pharmaceutical factory all the more needs time. It is estimated that from the development of vaccine to its real use for injection among groups of people takes from six to nine months.

Q: Since 2003, various countries around the world have been stepping up construction of a public health system in order to prevent the recurrence of epidemics like SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome). Do you think this will be of help to the prevention and control of bird flu?

A: It is obviously helpful. Because the regular reporting system, the transparency of information as required by the construction of a public health regime are evidently applicable to the prevention and control of bird flu. However, it should be noticed that in some countries and regions, this kind of reporting system is not perfect enough, the channels for acquiring information are not smooth and unimpeded enough and so there is the need for further perfection.

Q: With respect to the outbreak of bird flu, what things should the international community do? How should cooperation be strengthened? What financial aid is required to be provided?

A: The current demand for financial aid is not very urgent, what is crucial is to provide technical support and share information. For example, those countries that had experienced bird flu should help countries where the epidemic situation is currently rather serious to clearly see the epidemic situation, and provide them with successful experience in controlling the epidemic situation, this point is very important. The Netherlands witnessed large-scale bird flu last year, which was caused by H7N1 virus. The government of the Netherlands used huge amounts of manpower to kill a large flock of domestic fowls, finally, the situation was brought under control.

There is another vitally important point, i.e., the question concerning the transparency of information. Once bird flu is found in a country, it must make public the information in time, otherwise, the epidemic will not only harm the country itself, but will also endanger neighboring countries, there is also the possibility to cause the widespread of the disease in the region concerned, because it is difficult to stop the spread of the virus by controlling national boundaries alone. Thailand has learned a similar lesson this time.

Q: What concrete measures will the WHO adopt to cope with bird flu?

A: The WHO headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland is responsible for formulating a general principle of action and is getting in touch with relevant companies to discuss matters about the production of vaccines. At the same time, we have invited some experts, including experts on flu to go to the epidemic zones to provide the localities with relevant suggestions and help diagnose bird flu. The most important thing is to prevent bird flu from large-scale transfer from domestic fowls to human bodies.

Q: To cope with bird flu effectively, Asian countries are jointly taking measures, for instance, the ministerial-level conference on the current bird flu situation was held in Thailand on January 28, how do you appraise the importance of convening similar conferences?

A: To keep each other informed of the situation through a ministerial conference and share information is obviously a very positive and effective conduct, it will help keep the epidemic in check.. What is crucial at present is for various countries to carry out related proposals and decisions and adopt relevant preventative and control measures.

Q: Will the outbreak of the current bird flu lead to a situation like that of SARS last year?

A: We should say that various countries are taking active measures. It is still too early to foretell what the future development situation will look like, there exist many uncertain factors after all. For instance, whether the currently released figure of cases about humans being infected by bird flu is precise or not is still open to question, because the central governments of various countries may take very active attitudes toward this, but it is not easy to get precise figures from the provincial-level authorities. We human beings are exposed before virus, therefore we must not take it lightly, once an epidemic situation is discovered, we must take all scientific measures to stop the spread of the epidemic.

By People's Daily Online

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