Even as the European Union declared the spread of bird flu from Asia into the EU a “global threat” requiring international cooperation, the UN’s health agency urged people to keep calm, saying the risk to human was low.
The World Health Organization has said although the arrival of the virus in a new location is worrying — because more virus means more opportunities for genetic mutations — it does not mean a human flu pandemic is closer.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said it was important to keep the risk to humans in perspective.
“People confuse it with pandemic influenza, but they’re very different diseases,” he said. “If people just paid attention to the human risk [from bird flu, they would understand that] the possibility of infection is very low.”
The WHO has also warned Europeans Tuesday against panic-buying the drug Tamiflu, used in treating avian flu.
Following reports pharmacies had experienced a run on the drug, the organization issued a statement cautioning it could reduce the effect of the illness but was not a vaccine to prevent it, the BBC reported.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said officials “hope (a pandemic) will never happen” but adds they “will prepare properly.”
Most of the 25 EU governments lack sufficient stocks of anti-viral drugs designed to boost the resistance to the common flu of such risk groups as the elderly, the young, diabetics and others, he said.
The H5N1 bird flu strain has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing at least 60 people, more than 40 of them in Vietnam. It has resulted in the deaths of at least 140m birds.
Its spread westwards, thought to have been brought about by migrating wild fowl, has intensified European fears that it could mutate into a form easily transmittable among humans. Experts fear such a development could provoke a global epidemic, putting millions of lives at risk.
Greece has banned the export of live birds and poultry meat from its Aegean Sea islands, where the first case of bird flu in the EU was confirmed.
Tests were also being carried out on birds in Bulgaria and Croatia, while Romania confirmed that a swan with bird flu antibodies had been discovered near the Ukrainian border.
The EU has stepped up biosecurity measures and installed early detection systems along the migratory paths of birds in an attempt to prevent the contamination of domestic flocks.
The WHO recommends that governments keep enough stocks of anti-viral drugs and ordinary human flu vaccines to inoculate at least 25% of the population.
Meanwhile, Tamiflu manufacturer Roche has said it was willing to talk to governments or other manufacturers about sub-licensing manufacture of the drug.
But one Indian generic drugs maker, Cipla, has said that it wants to start supplying governments who are building stockpiles of the drug, while Thailand said it will bypass Roche’s patent to make its own version of Tamiflu by next October.
The World Health Organization has said although the arrival of the virus in a new location is worrying — because more virus means more opportunities for genetic mutations — it does not mean a human flu pandemic is closer.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said it was important to keep the risk to humans in perspective.
“People confuse it with pandemic influenza, but they’re very different diseases,” he said. “If people just paid attention to the human risk [from bird flu, they would understand that] the possibility of infection is very low.”
The WHO has also warned Europeans Tuesday against panic-buying the drug Tamiflu, used in treating avian flu.
Following reports pharmacies had experienced a run on the drug, the organization issued a statement cautioning it could reduce the effect of the illness but was not a vaccine to prevent it, the BBC reported.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said officials “hope (a pandemic) will never happen” but adds they “will prepare properly.”
Most of the 25 EU governments lack sufficient stocks of anti-viral drugs designed to boost the resistance to the common flu of such risk groups as the elderly, the young, diabetics and others, he said.
The H5N1 bird flu strain has swept through poultry populations in large swathes of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing at least 60 people, more than 40 of them in Vietnam. It has resulted in the deaths of at least 140m birds.
Its spread westwards, thought to have been brought about by migrating wild fowl, has intensified European fears that it could mutate into a form easily transmittable among humans. Experts fear such a development could provoke a global epidemic, putting millions of lives at risk.
Greece has banned the export of live birds and poultry meat from its Aegean Sea islands, where the first case of bird flu in the EU was confirmed.
Tests were also being carried out on birds in Bulgaria and Croatia, while Romania confirmed that a swan with bird flu antibodies had been discovered near the Ukrainian border.
The EU has stepped up biosecurity measures and installed early detection systems along the migratory paths of birds in an attempt to prevent the contamination of domestic flocks.
The WHO recommends that governments keep enough stocks of anti-viral drugs and ordinary human flu vaccines to inoculate at least 25% of the population.
Meanwhile, Tamiflu manufacturer Roche has said it was willing to talk to governments or other manufacturers about sub-licensing manufacture of the drug.
But one Indian generic drugs maker, Cipla, has said that it wants to start supplying governments who are building stockpiles of the drug, while Thailand said it will bypass Roche’s patent to make its own version of Tamiflu by next October.
