Australia urges calm over bird flu
Australia urged calm today over fears about the spread of bird flu as it hosted disaster co-ordinators from Pacific Rim nations to hammer out ways to stop emerging diseases from skipping across the region’s borders.
“There is no need to panic at this stage and we shouldn’t overstate the risk,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said before addressing the officials, who represent the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum.
Vietnam and Cambodia, both hit with human bird flu deaths, appealed for financial and technical help from their neighbours, saying they simply don’t have the resources to fight the disease alone.
Vietnam’s Vice Minister of Agriculture Bui Ba Bong said the communist country needs $50m (€41.7m) and help building up its stockpile of bird flu drugs as it struggles to keep a lid on the H5N1 bird flu virus that has jumped from poultry to people, killing more than 40 humans in Vietnam since late 2003.
Vietnam has enough antiviral drugs to treat 60,000 people, but Bong said the country of 8.2 million needs far more.
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