FAO Praises Malaysia's Handling Of Bird Flu

BANGKOK, April 10 (Bernama) -- The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has commended Malaysia's handling of the recent bird flu outbreak but it needs to take steps to contain it at livestock centres, market places and border trade.
FAO assistant director-general and Regional Representative for Asia Pacific, He Changchui said FAO was satisfied with Malaysia's policy and programmes which the United Nations considered as efficient and successful.
"The outbreak was sporadic with cases there and here. But Malaysia did well to contain it on its own without outside help," he said during a press conference by Senior UN System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, Dr David Nabarro here Monday.
He, however, said Malaysia, like other countries in the region, must step up its efforts to contain the avian influenza outbreak at livestock centres and other human activities associated with poultry.
"These include market places, border trade and poultry farms. It can be monitored, surveyed and a mechanism developed to control it," he said.
Bird flu disease was detected in Gombak and in several locations in Perak but were contained by Malaysian authorities.
Nabarro, who is visiting China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Laos to assess progress made by governments and other agencies in containing the virus, said bird flu remained a major threat to Asia, with possible human to human mutation.
"In the last six months, there has been a lot of efforts and transparency from governments in the region to contain the virus. But the virus is still there and we have to be vigilant so that it won't spread to other region or mutate into human to human virus," he said.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) figures show that there have been 190 confirmed human cases, with 107 deaths in nine countries.
Vietnam has the highest number with 93 cases, followed by Indonesia 29 and Thailand 22.
Dr Nabarro said while some countries had been doing well to contain the virus, poor nations like Cambodia were facing problems like giving incentives to farmers.
"Two young children died when contacted the disease from sick birds. The villages knew about the danger but the question is why nobody inform the government... is it the question of not enough incentive," he said.
He said UN agencies were now working with the Cambodian government to formulate an incentive scheme that would encourage early reporting but not become a burden to the authorities as well.
Asked if the US$1.9 billion pledged by international donors at a conference in Beijing last January was sufficient, Dr Nabarro said more funds were needed due to the intensity of the virus.
"The amount of HN51 virus is much more greater now, and the number of countries affected are higher than the money that was pledged. Then, cases were only in Asia and Eastern Europe but now we have in Africa and Middle East," he said.
On Myanmar, He Hangchui said FAO would send two teams there with the necessary equipments and medicines following requests from the Myanmar government.
He said there were more than 100 cases in two divisions but Myanmar lacked proper protection gear and technologies like laboratory tests to contain the virus.
WHO representative in Thailand, Somchai Peerapakorn said the Tamiflu drug was still the drug of choice to fight avian influenza, despite pitfalls like patients given the drug within 48 hours of getting the disease.
"Right now, this is the anti viral drug that works against all avian influenza and scientifically proven. As far as WHO is concerned, Tamiflu is the drug of choice," he said.
Somchai said this when asked if the effectiveness of the drug was only a hype by certain firms to raise their stock market value.
He said Thailand was also producing the drug but more work needed to be done to ensure it met safety standards before being sold commercially.