The Hindu : National : India pledges $2 million for global response to bird flu

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Friday, Dec 07, 2007
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India pledges $2 million for global response to bird flu

Gargi Parsai

Risk of influenza pandemic still as great as mid-2005
“Major H5N1 outbreak linked with commercial movements”

NEW DELHI: Global donors pledged $406.1 million as response to the threat of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) (bird flu) and State of Pandemic Readiness at the New Delhi International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza that concluded here on Thursday.

India declared itself to be bird flu-free again on November 7 this year. For the first time, India become a donor, and pledged $2 million to the cause.

However, the funds pledged were about $70 million lower than the one raised at the last Conference at Bamako in Africa last year. Explaining this, Minister for Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramadoss said this meeting was not for pledging funds. “It was primarily for coordination, collaboration, sharing data and strategising.”

The countries who pledged funds include India, the U.K., Japan, Germany, Greece, France, Norway, European Commission and the U.S. A Vision and Road Map document was also released.

The risk of a world-wide influenza pandemic is still as great as it was in mid-2005 when it first started to receive intense publicity, says the Third Global Progress Report released at the conference.

It stated that according to the World Health Organisation, “there will be an influenza pandemic, sooner or later,” with the potential to result in millions of deaths and severe social, economic and humanitarian consequences. “The world has a unique opportunity to prepare for the pandemic now.”

The current epizootic of HPAI is caused by type A virus H5N1 which has the capacity to infect humans (less than 350 cases of sporadic human infection have been confirmed). There is concern that the genetic material in the avian virus can mutate or re-assort in a way that makes it capable of sustained transmission between humans. So far, this sustained human-to-human transmission has not happened. However, HPAI continues to spread among poultry and other birds. Sixty countries have now reported outbreaks of H5N1 in either poultry or wild birds or both.

The conditions in which continued transmission of HPAI H5N1 occurs, where the virus is considered to be enzootic (or entrenched), are the cause for ongoing concern, and Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria and “possibly” some locations in China and Bangladesh have suitable conditions for it.

J. Domenech of the FAO said more awareness had resulted in early detection of outbreaks and quicker response and “reduced virus.”

Barnard Vallat of the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) said the major H5N1 outbreak was linked with commercial movements. Wild Birds had been identified as a source of infection. “Countries should take into account the risk of trade linked with wild birds. Contacts should be avoided between domestic and wild birds.”

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