HO CHI MINH CITY (AFX) - Bird flu has cost 10 bln usd in agricultural losses and the world needs to spend hundreds of millions more to combat it, health experts said at a conference which ended here today.
Samuel Jutzi, the Food and Agriculture Organization's director of animal production and health, told a press briefing "the global cost of the avian epidemic to agriculture is about 10 bln usd ... so far."
"More than 100 mln usd will be needed to strengthen urgently animal health services and laboratories to improve virus detection and its ultimate eradication," he said.
In addition, several hundred million dollars will be required to finance the restocking of infected poultry flocks and to restructure the whole sector.
Many millions of chickens and other poultry have been slaughtered in an attempt to contain the virus, hitting the region's agriculture industry hard.
Delegations from more than 20 countries and organizations, including major donors and United Nations agencies, were at the meeting held in Vietnam's southern business capital.
The issue of resources has weighed heavily at the meeting, with FAO experts complaining that only 18 mln usd has been committed to the cause so far.
There are between 25 mln and 40 mln backyard poultry farmers in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, where the virus has been discovered since late 2003.
China, Japan and South Korea are the other three countries where it has been found.
Thirty-three people have died in Vietnam since then in several outbreaks and another 12 have died in Thailand.
A 21-year-old man has tested positive for bird flu in northern Vietnam, becoming the first human case identified in the country in more than three weeks.
"The conference has shared global concern of potential threat to human health of avian influenza," Jutzi said. "We cannot address the problem in isolation from human health aspects."
The World Health Organization's regional director, Shigeru Omi, had warned at the outset of the three-day conference of "the gravest possible danger of a pandemic".
Jutzi said today the FAO is "in unison with the WHO, when they stress the urgency of the situation".
But he stressed the need to fight the virus in poultry, saying "the longer the virus circulates in poultry, the higher is the exposure to humans".
The meeting also recognized the virus still holds many mysteries that need to be unraveled before it can be brought under control in Asia.
"There are more questions than when we started the conference," Patrick Deboyser, a health and food safety expert with the European Union delegation based in Thailand, told Agence France-Presse.
The expert said, among the questions raised during the conference, many concerned the risk to poultry farmers. "Why some are infected and others are not infected?" he asked.
"Why are there not more human cases as so many people have been in contact with diseased birds?"
FAO epidemiologist Dr Juan Lubroth said the conference had raised important issues about the origin of the virus, and the origin of the latest epidemics in Asia.
"Production systems and marketing of poultry and poultry products are, from my perspective, more responsible for the widespread epidemic," he said.
Delegates strongly recommended segregation in farm settings of chicken, ducks and other animals such as pigs. A reduction of contact between human and animals is also deemed necessary.
Lubroth said resources need to be made available to the veterinary and animal health authorities "to really put a lid on this problem".
nj-tmh/dla/sdm/ds
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com
Samuel Jutzi, the Food and Agriculture Organization's director of animal production and health, told a press briefing "the global cost of the avian epidemic to agriculture is about 10 bln usd ... so far."
"More than 100 mln usd will be needed to strengthen urgently animal health services and laboratories to improve virus detection and its ultimate eradication," he said.
In addition, several hundred million dollars will be required to finance the restocking of infected poultry flocks and to restructure the whole sector.
Many millions of chickens and other poultry have been slaughtered in an attempt to contain the virus, hitting the region's agriculture industry hard.
Delegations from more than 20 countries and organizations, including major donors and United Nations agencies, were at the meeting held in Vietnam's southern business capital.
The issue of resources has weighed heavily at the meeting, with FAO experts complaining that only 18 mln usd has been committed to the cause so far.
There are between 25 mln and 40 mln backyard poultry farmers in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, where the virus has been discovered since late 2003.
China, Japan and South Korea are the other three countries where it has been found.
Thirty-three people have died in Vietnam since then in several outbreaks and another 12 have died in Thailand.
A 21-year-old man has tested positive for bird flu in northern Vietnam, becoming the first human case identified in the country in more than three weeks.
"The conference has shared global concern of potential threat to human health of avian influenza," Jutzi said. "We cannot address the problem in isolation from human health aspects."
The World Health Organization's regional director, Shigeru Omi, had warned at the outset of the three-day conference of "the gravest possible danger of a pandemic".
Jutzi said today the FAO is "in unison with the WHO, when they stress the urgency of the situation".
But he stressed the need to fight the virus in poultry, saying "the longer the virus circulates in poultry, the higher is the exposure to humans".
The meeting also recognized the virus still holds many mysteries that need to be unraveled before it can be brought under control in Asia.
"There are more questions than when we started the conference," Patrick Deboyser, a health and food safety expert with the European Union delegation based in Thailand, told Agence France-Presse.
The expert said, among the questions raised during the conference, many concerned the risk to poultry farmers. "Why some are infected and others are not infected?" he asked.
"Why are there not more human cases as so many people have been in contact with diseased birds?"
FAO epidemiologist Dr Juan Lubroth said the conference had raised important issues about the origin of the virus, and the origin of the latest epidemics in Asia.
"Production systems and marketing of poultry and poultry products are, from my perspective, more responsible for the widespread epidemic," he said.
Delegates strongly recommended segregation in farm settings of chicken, ducks and other animals such as pigs. A reduction of contact between human and animals is also deemed necessary.
Lubroth said resources need to be made available to the veterinary and animal health authorities "to really put a lid on this problem".
nj-tmh/dla/sdm/ds
For more information and to contact AFX: www.afxnews.com and www.afxpress.com
© 2005 AFX News
