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Annan urges nations to prepare for possible bird flu pandemic
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YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSUNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on the international community Thursday to make immediate preparations for a possible pandemic of bird flu. It is not clear that the H5N1 virus, first identified in birds in Asia and recently found in Europe, will ever gain the ability to infect large numbers of people. But, he said, world leaders cannot afford to ignore the threat. "We do know what happens when millions of people die, and millions more are infected, when health systems are overburdened and overwhelmed, when families, communities and whole societies are devastated, when transport and trade, education and other services are disrupted or cease to function, when the economic and social progress of nations risks being reversed," he told the Time Global Health Summit. The disease has spread rapidly among birds, first in Southeast Asia and more recently in Europe, and it has infected more than 120 people and proven fatal in half the cases. Should it gain the ability -- through mutation -- to readily be transmitted among people, the results could be catastrophic, health experts say. "Once human-to-human transmission has been established, we would have only a matter of weeks to lock down the spread before it spins out of control," Annan warned. He outlined actions he said must be undertaken immediately, including strengthening veterinary infrastructure to identify any outbreak and track the spread of H5N1. Health workers have lowered the risk by culling infected flocks, but poultry farmers must be compensated or they may be reluctant to report outbreaks of illness, he said. In addition, people must learn that simple proximity to birds -- a way of life for much of the world -- increases the risk of contracting a virus from an animal, and the practice must be changed, Annan said. "Hard as it will be, we must find ways of structuring that co-existence, or we will never be able to stop viruses migrating from animals to us -- and to our children," said Annan, who noted that people tend to live in close proximity to animals in his home country of Ghana. Should the worst fears of public health experts be realized, nations should have already prepared contingency plans to ensure essential services continue, he said. He also called for scaling up production of antiviral agents to ensure access for anyone who needs them. Annan said the secrecy that typically surrounds any medical research must be cast aside in the case of bird flu, so that any advances in treatment or vaccines can be shared quickly, and he urged political leadership "at the highest level" to work to ensure that happens. 
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