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Bio-secure farms to combat bird flu, APEC says

Date: Jun 05, 06

By Y. Sulaiman l eTN Asia Pacific

Health ministers and officials attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Danang, Vietnam were shown a model bio-secure farm recommended by health experts as a frontline step to combat the global war on bird flu.

"We find it to be impressive," said John Lange, US State Department official for avian influenza. "A worst-case scenario, like the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed tens of millions is going to overwhelm many public health systems."

APEC members China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam have reported human deaths, while the virus has infected poultry in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Russia and South Korea.

Member countries have pledge to shift from backyard poultry farming and live bird markets to more secure bio-farms.

In most Asian countries, chicken and ducks are traditionally kept in family backyard
farms and transported live in baskets on motorbikes to 'wet' markets for slaughter.

He Changchui, Asia Pacific head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization said there are millions of backyard farmers in Asia. "Restructuring the poultry industry is a big challenge."

In Vietnam, it is estimated 8 million people still keep poultry in small family farms within the house compound.

"We need to restructure the poultry sector and set up better veterinary services," said Vietnamese Agriculture Minister Cau Duc Phat. "It will be a long process. It cannot be done very quickly."

APEC health and agriculture ministers from the group's 21 member countries have agreed to adopt an action plan to share all information on new cases to stop, or slow human outbreak.

The United Nations World Health Organization (UNWHO) representative in Vietnam, Hans Troedsson said there is a window of opportunity of between 14-21 days during which the spread can be contained.

"You can go into the area, cordon it off, treat the whole population with anti-viral, and restrict movement in and out of the area,” Troedsson said. "But no one can predict when, nor can we say that it will be the H5N1 or a more benign strain. The threat is there."

The plan, however, can only succeed if there is transparency, early reporting so the rest of the world can then know where there is an outbreak, and international organizations can respond.

"If you miss that window of opportunity, you will have an epidemic in the country that in a couple of weeks will spread in the region and in one or two months time will turn into a global pandemic."

Shugart from the Canadian health ministry, said a plan needs to be adopted on what countries can do to keep economies working, trade and movement of people going, and how to get things going again should a pandemic ever happen.

"A pandemic would disrupt the health, security, mass transportation, the service industry, travel and tourism sectors of every country,” Shugart said. "So we want to protect human life by keeping the virus in the birds so that it doesn't spread to humans."

Singapore and Australia on June 7-8 will test a regional 'desktop' communications drill with other APEC member countries to improve communications during a possible pandemic outbreak.

"This influenza does not know borders. We have to work together on this," added Lange.

UNWHO has warned the risk of a pandemic is great since bird flu has now spread to Europe and Africa from Asia.