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Bird flu may kill 150m, warns U.N.WHO expert urges world to prepare for anticipated outbreak
HEALTH LIBRARYRELATED
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- A global influenza pandemic could come at any time and claim anywhere between 5 million and 150 million lives, depending on steps the world takes now to control the bird flu in Asia, the United Nations said. Additionally, the bird flu virus is likely to mutate into a strain that can be passed person to person, Dr. David Nabarro of the World Health Organization told reporters at a Thursday news conference at the United Nations in New York. "We expect the next influenza pandemic to come at any time now, and it's likely to be caused by a mutant of the virus that is currently causing bird flu in Asia," Nabarro said in a report from The Associated Press. Nabarro's comments came as governments and international organizations intensified efforts to combat the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The United States Senate on Thursday agreed to spend $4 billion to stock up on anti-viral drugs and increase global surveillance for the disease. But the money, attached to an unrelated fiscal 2006 spending bill for the military, has not been embraced by the House of Representatives. Earlier this month U.S. President George W. Bush announced a plan at the United Nations calling for global resources and expertise to be pooled to fight bird flu. The United States will host a planning meeting on the subject next week. Canada will host an October 25-26 meeting of high-level public health officials in Ottawa. (Full story) And WHO has called for a November 7-8 meeting in Geneva to coordinate needed funding. The H5N1 virus has so far mainly infected humans who were in close contact with infected birds. It has killed more than 60 people in four Asian nations since late 2003. Millions of birds in Asia have been destroyed. According to a Reuters report, an estimated $10 billion to $15 billion in losses to the poultry industry have been recorded so far, with the heaviest losses in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. The virus has also been found in birds in Russia and Europe. At his Thursday news conference at the United Nations, Nabarro said Asia and the Middle East are of special concern as the bird flu is now concentrated in Asia and could be carried to the Middle East by migratory flocks. But Nabarro warned that an outbreak in impoverished and conflict-ridden parts of Africa, where health services are scarce and millions have been driven from their homes, could lead to "a nightmare scenario," he said. Nabarro said he would head a new U.N. system-wide office in New York that would begin mobilizing governments, international agencies, health workers and the pharmaceutical industry. Once the virus began spreading among humans, it would be only a matter of weeks before a pandemic was under way, so a rapid response would be crucial, he said. "The avian flu epidemic has to be controlled if we are to prevent a human influenza pandemic," Nabarro said, according to AP. The last flu pandemic broke out in 1918 following World War I, killing more than 40 million people. There were subsequent pandemics in 1957 and 1968 which had lower death rates but caused great disruption, he said. A new pandemic would claim between 5 million and 150 million people, Nabarro said. "I believe the work we're doing over the next few months on prevention and preparedness will make the difference between, for example, whether the next pandemic leads us in the direction of 150 (million) or in the direction of 5 (million)," he said in the AP report. "So our effectiveness will be directly measured in lives saved and the consequences for the world." Nabarro said in an AP report that he faces the challenges of persuading governments to prepare for a pandemic and to overcome their reluctance to publicly disclose an outbreak. Another major challenge will be to gear up vaccine makers to produce large quantities immediately after a pandemic starts and the exact variety of influenza is known, he said. The Associated Press reported that Nabarro plans to travel to Washington on Friday to work with the U.S. State Department on preparations for the first meeting of the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza, to be held on October 7. The U.S. initiative is designed to increase global readiness to deal with a human flu pandemic and will "garner political will," he said in the AP report. Nabarro said he will then spend the next two weeks traveling in Asia, before attending a meeting of health ministers in Ottawa, Canada on October 25. Nabarro said he hopes to persuade governments that "the U.N. system is actually going to help keep their people alive," and to generate political support for a three-pronged strategy focusing on prevention, preparedness, and response to a potential pandemic. While the U.N.'s efforts will initially focus on Asian countries, Nabarro said that because of the flight patterns of migratory birds, "and our perception that the virus is in the migratory birds, we need to be looking at this globally," AP reported. He said "the real nightmare scenario is that the pandemic takes root in some of the least well-served and perhaps very crowded parts of the world where services are bad," like the camps for thousands of people who have fled their homes in Sudan's conflict-wracked Darfur region, AP reported. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report. 
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