Deadly threat of bird flu: Regional response essential
Chickens and ducks are infected first with deadly virus from migrating wild birds. Once poultry is infected, they are to be destroyed because the virus can mutate and infect human beings who are close to poultry farms.
In recent days, bird flu has occurred in Romania and Turkey. Both the countries have culled millions of chickens. The EU has banned any import of birds from Turkey and Romania. In Latin America, Columbia has reported its first human case of infection.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. How the outbreak unfolded in various countries:
April 5: The UN says that H7 strain of bird flu has been found in South Korea, previously undetected in Asia.
July 20: Indonesia confirms its first deaths from bird flu
August 10: The virus is found in Tibet, a world animal body says.
August 15: Russia reports an outbreak of bird flu in the Ural regions
August 23: An outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu strain in found in Kazakhstan
October 8: Turkey reports its first cases of bird flu
October 13: A strain of bird flu H5 has been detected in Romanian ducks
Virus may jump from chickens to humans
The World Health Organisation (WHO) fears a mutation of the bird flu (avian flu) virus could spark a worldwide epidemic among humans, similar to the Spanish flu outbreak, which claimed between 40 and 50 millions of lives after the World War I. The children and elderly are most vulnerable.
Experts say that the possibility of a worldwide epidemic (pandemic) is about 10 per cent and they do not know whether it may occur this year or next year or in the next few years.
At the moment, humans pick up bird flu from bird faeces, blood or mucus and in a few documented cases -- notably in Thailand and Hong Kong -- appear to have passed it on to humans through their own faeces or blood.
Human and bird flu, if they combine, will create a new deadly virus and it may probably first occur where humans live with ducks and chickens. It has been reported that the virus H5N1 is already mutating to make it more suited to humans.
In Thailand, a 26 year-old woman died last year after "prolonged face-to-face exposure" with her infected daughter. In May this year, the WHO reported "changes in the epidemiological patterns are consistent with the possibility that recently emerging virus H5N1 may be more infectious for humans."
Pandemic may cost 150 million lives
Experts say pandemics are ruled by mathematics; by the density of people living in cities, as demonstrated in pandemics of 1918. Last year, the WHO predicted that a pandemic could cost 100 million lives and last week the UN raised the figure to 150 million.
The danger is that existing flu vaccine does not work because it is not geared to bird flu strains. The virus H5N1 may genetically mix with human flu and evolve to such a point that it can be passed on by sneezing, which would be the start of a pandemic.
Another danger is virus H5N1 has been found to mutate in human beings. The widely-used antiviral drug Tamiflu that is used against virus H5N1 has not been effective in some cases of infected human beings because of mutation.
Search for vaccine
The finding that Spanish flu came straight from birds to humans raised deep concerns among scientists. The re-creation of the Spanish flu virus in the US will reveal why the 1918 pandemic flu was so devastating.
Scientists collected fragments of the virus from lung tissue taken from victims at the time and preserved in formalin or in one case, isolated from the lungs of a woman whose body had become frozen in the Alaskan permafrost. Using the fragments, they painstakingly pieced together and read the complete genetic code before using the sequence to rebuild the virus.
While the researchers argue the work will hugely improve in producing vaccine against viruses, the critics say there is real danger the virus will escape, with potentially disastrous consequences. Viruses have escaped from laboratories before. During the recent SARS outbreak, the virus escaped at least twice, once in Taiwan and once in Singapore, when researchers became contaminated.
US plan
The US authorities have set up quarantine booths at almost all international airports to screen all passengers from Asia to prevent bird flu in the country.
President Bush said on 4th October that he was concerned about the danger of bird flu poses to the world. He indicated that the US military might get involved to quarantine infected areas of the US.
This is the second time in recent weeks that the President has suggested Congress pass special legislation to allow the US military to by-pass the state-controlled National Guard to perform what amounts to civilian policing, which has been unlawful in the US for almost 80 years.
That President Bush raised the issue of a military-enforced quarantine in the event of a bird flu epidemic shows that health authorities are increasingly concerned a worldwide epidemic would inevitably strike the US.
South Asian region
Despite worldwide concern about the spread of bird flu to jumping to humans, many South Asian nations appear not to have greeted the potential threat with gravity and are taking little visible or public awareness action, increasing the odds that a global pandemic could ignite in South Asia.
In Bangladesh, the experts agree a flu pandemic is much more likely to step off a plane in the form of people, traveling to and from other parts of the world, than land on the wings of wild migrating birds.
To prevent or at least minimise the risk of a pandemic in Bangladesh will involve working very closely with our neighbours. A meeting of Health Ministers of SAARC and health experts needs to be held ( if not already held), to consider plans and strategies in close association with WHO to protect people in the SAARC region.
Furthermore the SAARC Secretariat may take initiative to hold a conference of veterinary surgeons of SAARC countries to examine and plan strategies to fight bird flu in the region. No country is an island at present and sooner or later the bird flu may appear in South Asia.
This raises the question of whether the region needs a medicines stockpile to cope with severe and unusual disease risks. One advantage would be to better manage the distribution of limited resources while sharing costs.
Conclusion
Political leadership will be essential in making any initiatives work in South Asia. As the nations in South Asia develop closer ties within the SAARC set-up, we need to push the thinking on those challenges that could threaten not only lives but also future prosperity. Just over two years ago, SARS caused economic damage measured in the tens of billions of dollars, with the livelihood of many thousands affected.
It is noted that security including human security does not start at our borders and that we have an interest in ensuring the region manages pandemic effectively.