BEIJING -
All 168 live poultry markets in Beijing were shut
November 7 as the authorities beefed up efforts to
contain the spread of the bird flu virus. The
municipal government also closed pet-bird markets,
banned chicken raising in urban areas, and asked
citizens to keep their pigeons in cages.
Residents have been told to vaccinate all
animals, including pets, against bird flu and
food-and-mouth disease; and those who refuse to do
so can be taken into custody or fined. The tough
measures in the capital are being replicated
around the country as a meeting of hundreds of
international experts opened in Geneva with
warnings that a global human flu pandemic is
inevitable.
"It is only a matter of time
before an avian flu virus ... acquires the ability
to be transmitted from human to human, sparking the
outbreak of human pandemic
influenza," World Health Organization director
general Lee Jong-wook told the gathering.
Experts fear the bird flu virus that is
sweeping through Asia and has already entered
Europe could mutate into a form that is easily
passed between humans, producing a pandemic that
could kill millions and cost the global economy up
to US$800 billion.
People are not easily
infected by the virus in its present form; the
disease has been acquired almost exclusively
through human contact with birds. But should it
spark a human pandemic, the cost to industrialized
countries could be huge, the World Bank said.
China has not officially reported any
human case of bird flu, but the authorities would
not rule out on November 6 that three people could
have been infected in Xiangtan, in central China's
Hunan province. One of
the three, a 12-year-old girl, died last month
while her nine-year-old brother and a 36-year-old
middle school teacher are reported to have
recovered.
The World Bank report said
previous studies on flu pandemics had suggested
any new outbreak could kill between 100,000 and
200,000 people in the United States alone, which
it said translated into economic losses for the
country of between $100 billion and $200 billion.
"If we extrapolate from the US to all
high-income countries, there could be a
present-value loss of $550 billion. The loss for
the world would, of course, be significantly
larger, because of the impact in the developing
world," the report said.
Authorities in
China are taking such dire warnings seriously as
evidenced by a string of measures. Health Minister
Gao Qiang has ordered health departments across
the country to act quickly in the prevention and
control of human infection of bird flu. Addressing
a national televized conference, Gao told them to
strengthen their work in monitoring, control and
treatment, stressing that rapid response is
crucial.
Taiwan weighs
measures Taiwan will consider
tightening its bird flu-response measures,
particularly on passengers from China, if cases of
bird flu spreading from poultry to humans are
confirmed in China, a Department of Health (DOH)
official said November 7.
Lin Ting, deputy
director general of the DOH's Center for Disease
Control, said that so far 16 Chinese provinces and
administrative districts, including Anhui, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia, had been
hit by bird flu outbreaks, with hundreds of
thousands of poultry already destroyed to keep the
animal disease from spreading.
In the
southern Chinese province of Hunan, Lin said, three
people reportedly have been infected with a
pneumonia for unknown reasons. Among them, a young
girl was suspected of having contracted bird flu
carrying the deadly H5N1 strain. The cause of her
death is not expected to be discovered as her body
has already been cremated, Lin added.
Currently, Taiwan is bird flu-free, but is
preparing to battle a possible bird flu pandemic,
and has taken various bird flu-response measures,
including seeking permission to mass produce the
influenza medicine Tamiflu from its patent holder,
Roche Pharmaceuticals AG, Lin noted.
Liu
said that in a bid to keep bird flu at bay, Taiwan
visitors to China had been advised not to come
into direct contact with poultry, alive or dead.
For those returning or coming to Taiwan from
China, they had been advised to conduct a 10-day
self-health monitoring program, including daily
temperature taking, after their arrival, he added.
