Health Officials (around world) Call for Long-Term Spending on Bird Flu

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Health Officials Call for Long-Term Spending on Bird Flu
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: January 17, 2006


BEIJING, Jan. 17 - Top health officials from around the world said here today that governments will have to spend heavily for years to prevent bird flu from spreading widely among humans, and cannot rely just on the many stop-gap steps taken so far.

A two-day conference that began here this morning is expected to produce pledges of $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion in bird-flu spending from the conference's sponsors - the European Union, the World Bank and China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs - and from other donors, including the United States.

The recent spate of 20 human cases of bird flu on Europe's doorstep in Turkey, including four deaths, has prompted criticism here of Turkish officials for not spotting the disease in local poultry sooner. This has led to calls for a broad international effort to build up many nations' veterinary capacity to spot outbreaks early, when they can still be contained fairly easily through steps like culling or vaccinating nearby chickens.

"Most people see this as a long-term challenge," said Dr. David Nabarro, the United Nations' top coordinator for avian and human influenza. "The short-term money is needed because we have some services that are stretched, but we need a long-term approach."...

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Turkey's difficulties in halting its outbreak have underlined the challenge for poor countries in detecting the disease early. Bernard Vallat, the director general of the World Organization for Animal Health, said that it was crucial to catch an outbreak within the first 48 hours, and that Turkey had failed to do so....


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/health/17cnd-flu.html

[murray hill farm]

1. If/when this becomes pandemic...

We can all be sure that we will be on our own in protecting ourselves...the writing is large on the wall for this one...i have done a simple thing..just in case...i have bought a 2 month supply of basic canned food items and bottled water...i use the water and replace to keep it fresh..keeping always the basic amount on hand..so that "if" this should become pandemic, i at least will not have to leave the house for food. It is a simple thing to do, but if it should come right down to it..i will not have to leave the house and expose myself to it...and if a year goes by and the canned fruit and veggies, etc. should reach their expiration date, i can eat and replace for another year. A simple thing.