Glimmers Of Hope Seen In Africa Bird Flu Gloom

The world's poorest continent, including badly hit Egypt and Nigeria, is regarded by experts as the weakest link in the worldwide operation to stem infections among birds and head off a potentially devastating human flu pandemic. 'Within the southern part of Africa there are countries, Botswana for example, which would be capable of detecting the virus quickly,' Bernard Vallat, Director General of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said in an interview. Vallat said Namibia, Swaziland, the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius and certain provinces of economic giant South Africa also had the technical capacity to detect any outbreak of bird flu quickly -- regarded as essential for effective control. Those countries are far from the areas so far infected by the deadly H5N1 virus in West and North Africa, but they offer hope for other countries trying to bring their own surveillance services up to scratch. "¦ 'The situation has improved because of the actions we have taken,' Vallat said in the interview late on Wednesday. But despite progress, Vallat said Africa's worst affected countries, Nigeria and Egypt, were battling to control bird flu, and risked triggering another round of infections. "¦" [Reuters/Factiva]

Echoing Vallat's concerns, "Joseph Domenech, head of the Animal Health Service of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said: 'The virus is continuing to circulate but has not taken on the explosive character it had in Asia.' "¦ Africa needs to 'be subject to very specific attention' due to its significant social and economic difficulties, he said. 'The investments are not there, there is not enough support for Africa,' he told AFP. "¦" [Agence France Presse/Factiva]

""¦ The three-day meeting in Mali, the fourth global bird flu summit since late last year, includes a donor conference on Friday seeking an extra $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion over 2-3 years to add to $1.9 billion pledged in Beijing last January. But the meeting began with a warning that complacency threatened to undermine international efforts against bird flu. 'Technical experts are sometimes accused of having overestimated the risks from this disease, or of exaggerating its potential threat,' said Modibo Traore, head of the African Union's InterAfrican Bureau for Animal Resources. 'The rampant demotivation that has resulted seems to have affected the main players in the struggle on all continents, and notably the donor community,' Traore told the opening session. "¦

[Meanwhile, UN influenza coordinator David Nabarro told Reuters in the Malian capital that:] 'It's not a lot of money: $500 million per year, divided by the population of Africa is less than a dollar each a year. "¦ The potential costs of an influenza pandemic would be of the order of $1-2 trillion ... and the actual cost of avian influenza thus far has been in the multiple billions of dollars.' Ok Pannenborg, Senior Health Advisor at the World Bank [further noted:]' The resources need to be mobilized and they need to be targeted at the countries at risk.'"¦" [Reuters/Factiva]

"The H5N1 bird flu virus remains a powerful threat to animals and humans, and the most vulnerable regions include southeast Asia, Africa, eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the UN food agency said Wednesday. 'The possibility of a human pandemic hangs over us,' the UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned in a statement to be read at Thursday's donor conference in Bamako, Mali. "¦ Several regions remain particularly vulnerable because of a shortfall in donor funding, the FAO said. However, the agency said its investment in national and regional plans to prepare for a possible outbreak is paying off in unaffected parts of the world like Latin America and the Caribbean. The agency also stressed the need for greater transparency and the sharing of information, especially regarding virus strains. "¦" [Dow Jones/Factiva]

By World Bank