January 23, 2007	Tuesday	Muharram 03, 1428

GENEVA, Jan 22: Global health chief Margaret Chan warned the world on Monday not to drop its guard against a possible flu pandemic, highlighting the fact that 2006 was a record year for human bird flu deaths.

There were 161 deaths from bird flu worldwide in 2006 out of 267 confirmed cases, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) data.

“More deaths occurred in 2006 than in the previous years combined,” the WHO director-general said.

The fatality rate reached 70 per cent last year, 10 per cent above the average since the first recorded deaths in China and Vietnam in 2003.

“The message is straightforward: we must not let down our guard,” Ms Chan said at the opening of the WHO’s executive board meeting.

“As long as the virus continues to circulate in birds, the threat of a pandemic will persist. The world is years away from control in the agricultural sector,” she warned.

Ms Chan said countries with large outbreaks in poultry flocks had largely failed to eliminate the virus from their territories, despite ‘heroic efforts’.

“This may mean that we have some more years in which to improve preparedness, or it may not. Influenza viruses are notoriously sloppy, unstable, and capricious. It is impossible to predict their behaviour,” she said.

Scientists fear that the growing number of human cases could enable the H5N1 virus to develop into a far more contagious strain that might trigger a global pandemic, potentially killing millions of people.

However, the virus still did not transit easily from birds to humans and was essentially a disease of birds for now, the WHO’s new chief said in a speech underlining her priorities for the year ahead.

They include an emergency meeting next month to launch a final drive to eradicate polio and a bid for more international cooperation to tackle the growing cross-border impact of health problems.

“Shocks to health, whether from emerging infections, natural disasters or environmental change can easily become greater and major shocks to the economy, societies and business continuity around the globe,” Ms Chan said.

The resurgence of polio in recent years would be at the centre of an ‘urgent, high-level’ meeting on Feb 27 to 28, she announced.

“The expected outcome is a set of milestones that must be met if transmission is to be interrupted in the four remaining endemic countries,” she said, insisting that eradication was medically feasible.

“Polio eradication is one of our most important areas of unfinished business,” she added.

The disease is endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

EGYPT ALERT: Egypt was on high alert after the H5N1 strain of the avian flu became more resistant to the Tamiflu antiviral drug predominantly used to combat the disease, the health minister was quoted as saying.

“The health ministry remains in a state of maximum alert and is reviewing its strategy in combating avian flu following the mutation of the H5N1 virus,” Hatem Al Gabali told the Al Ahram daily.

The WHO announced last week that a mutated strain of the virus with ‘reduced susceptibility’ to Tamiflu had been discovered in two people infected with bird flu in northern Egypt.

“The resort to Tamiflu continues, but additional medication now has to be given to complement the treatment,” health ministry spokesman said.

S. KOREA: South Korean health officials announced plans to slaughter hundreds of thousands of poultry to try to stem a new outbreak of bird flu.

The agriculture ministry said it would expand a mass cull that began on Sunday around a poultry farm near Cheonan.

The original plan was to cull 273,000 poultry, mostly chickens, within 500 metres of the infection site. Some 5,500 birds have been culled and buried in a quarantine area guarded by troops.

“Today we decided to extend the culling to all farms in a 3km quarantine zone,” ministry spokesman said.—AFP