Global bird-flu jitters grow
2005-10-24 11:52
Brussels - Russia, China and Romania confirmed new outbreaks of potentially lethal bird flu on Wednesday, fuelling fears of a global influenza pandemic as Europe scrambled to contain the virus on its southeastern flank.
Meanwhile, efforts to boost production of anti-flu vaccines multiplied, after Roche announced it would allow others to produce oseltamivir, the anti-flu drug the Swiss giant sells as the patented Tamiflu.
"Experts tell us that a human influenza pandemic is a real possibility, which could happen at any time in the coming years," said European Union (EU) health commissioner Markos Kyprianou.
"We need to plan for this."
In Moscow, Russia's agriculture ministry said the H5N1
virus - already detected in Siberia in the summer - had been discovered in the province of Tula, west of the Ural mountains, apparently borne by wild ducks.
The announcement marks the first time the virus has arrived west of the Urals in Russia.
Russia has culled hundreds of thousands of fowl and imposed numerous quarantines in a bid to wipe out the virus.
Big fear is that it might mutate
Europe's jitters about bird flu were triggered by the confirmation last week that Turkey and Romania had cases of the H5N1 strain of the virus, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia.
The big fear among experts is that H5N1 may mutate, acquiring genes from the human influenza virus that would make it highly infectious as well as lethal - possibly killing millions worldwide as the flu pandemic of 1918 did.
In Beijing, meanwhile, authorities announced China's first reported outbreak of bird flu in more than two months, saying the disease had killed 2 600 birds, mostly chickens, on a farm in its northern Inner Mongolia region.
The national bird-flu laboratory confirmed that an epidemic on a farm near the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot was the H5N1 strain, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Back on Europe's borders, Romanian and Turkish authorities continued to battle to contain the outbreaks.
In Romania, authorities said tests had confirmed the presence of new cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.
But the focus of more-immediate concern for Europe has turned to Greece, where authorities are awaiting the results of tests on a suspected case found on the tiny Aegean island of Oinousses on Monday.
Fears of a spread to Africa
If the H5N1 virus was confirmed in Greece, it would be the first time the lethal strain had arrived in the 25-nation EU.
In Budapest, health minister Jeno Racz announced that a prototype vaccine against the deadly Asian strain of bird flu being developed in Hungary had produced positive results on humans.
But concerns about a potential new front also grew, as a United Nations agency warned of the feared prospect of the virus spreading to Africa - saying such a scenario could increase the chances of it mutating into a virulent human flu virus.