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China 'needs to co-operate'
30/01/2004 14:33 - (SA)
Beijing - The World Health Organisation said on Friday the scale of the bird flu outbreak in China could be far larger than reported and it urged Beijing to urgently improve cooperation and prevention measures.
The UN agency said given China's size and its vast poultry industry, there was only a "small window of opportunity" to prevent a major outbreak of the disease which has killed 10 people and spread to 10 Asian nations.
"It's entirely possible that there are outbreaks elsewhere (in China) that have not been reported," said Beijing-based WHO spokesman Roy Wadia.
"If there are small, isolated outbreaks, it could be entirely possible it could be unnoticed. This could cause the virus to spread faster."
China, which has denied allegations it is the source of the region's bird flu troubles, produced 9.8 million tons of poultry in 2003 making it the second largest producer in the world, after the United States.
So far officials have only confirmed three isolated outbreaks and only around 200 000 chickens or ducks have been culled compared to millions in neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand.
Wadia urged China to step up prevention measures.
"There's a very small window of opportunity at this time closing very fast, so it's very important to take swift action," Wadia said.
China has reported bird flu in three farms in southern China's Guangxi province and central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces.
Wadia said the surveillance system in China may be the problem.
"It's a huge country and it's very difficult for the surveillance system to go everywhere," he said.
A Beijing-based international health expert who declined to be named also said he believed other areas might be affected.
He said bird flu outbreaks likely occur regularly in China.
"This probably happened in different times of the year and a lot of places have ducks wiped out and farmers just think it's bad luck, but because of the international attention now, they're starting to expose cases," the expert said.
People in mainland China also could have been infected, but were not diagnosed, he said.
"How often do people get flu symptoms and their samples get sent to a laboratory to get tested. And there are only a few places in China where you can do this testing. Not every hospital can do it," the expert said.
Wadia said WHO officials were still awaiting information from China's Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health -- information requested at least two weeks ago.
Wadia said WHO was also seeking information on China's poultry vaccination campaigns, which the British weekly New Scientist blamed for causing the current Asia-wide outbreak.
"We hope the Ministry of Agriculture will be a little more forthcoming," Wadia said. "Transparency, openness and collaboration should be the order of the day."
- AFP
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