Bird flu global disaster forum meets
Australia would consider shutting its borders if bird flu triggered a lethal human pandemic in the region, Australia’s foreign minister said today as disaster co-ordinators from Pacific rim countries gathered in Brisbane to discuss ways to head off such a crisis.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia may be forced to close its borders to people fleeing a human pandemic that could result from the virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu mutating into a form easily transmitted between humans.
Australia’s Health Minister Tony Abbott did not directly respond to questions on whether Australia would expel foreigners, close its ports or accept “flu refugees” in the event of a pandemic breaking out in neighbouring Indonesia.
Meanwhile, Vietnam said today that it needs tens of millions of dollars to fight the spread of bird flu as disaster co-ordinators from Pacific rim nations met in Australia to hammer out ways to stop emerging diseases skipping across the region’s borders.
Vietnam has been hardest hit by bird flu, which has killed more than 40 people in the country and prompted authorities to destroy tens of millions of poultry.
Vietnam has enough antiviral drugs to treat 60,000 people but Vice Minister of Agriculture Bui Ba Bong said the country of 8.2 million needs far more. Officials said last week they want enough to treat 30% of its population.
Disaster and pandemic co-ordinators from the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, along with health, animal and quarantine officials, were meeting for the first time to formulate a plan on the best ways to deal with various threat levels posed by diseases like bird flu.
The participants will also work to improve communications and information sharing about bird flu outbreaks across the region and to identify areas of cooperation that need improvement.
Officials have said talks in the eastern Australian city of Brisbane will also discuss how to maintain essential services such as power and water and when it might be appropriate to seal off national borders. Regional stockpiling of vaccines and antiviral drugs may also be discussed.
The meeting comes as a precursor to the APEC forum summit that is expected to bring top officials together in Busan, South Korea, in mid-November. Fighting avian influenza and trying to prevent a flu pandemic are expected to be high on the agenda there as well.
The region already got a taste of just how much devastation an infectious disease can cause. In 2003, SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, emerged in Asia and spread rapidly across the world via air travel, killing nearly 800 people and causing millions of dollars in economic losses.
Later that same year, the H5N1 bird flu virus began ravaging poultry stocks across the region and jumping from birds to people. Since then, it has killed at least 62 people in Southeast Asia, and health experts worry the virus could eventually be capable of causing much more harm.
As migratory birds spread the H5N1 virus to poultry in Europe, many more nations are expressing the same concerns, fearing the virus – which is now hard for humans to catch – could somehow mutate into a highly contagious form that spreads easily from person to person. The result could be a global pandemic that kills millions and cripples economies.
APEC members include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Taipei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, US and Vietnam.
Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar were expected to attend the meeting as observers along with several international organisations.
