International donors' conference on bird flu opens in Beijing (AP) Updated: 2006-01-17 10:35
Disease experts urged rich countries at a donors conference Tuesday to come
up with the US$1.5 billion (euro1.4 billion) that the World Bank says is needed
to tackle bird flu and prepare for a potential pandemic in humans.
"We're talking about a tremendous amount of money here for an issue that is
clearly of global importance. The stakes are very high," James LeDuc, a viral
illness expert at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The
Associated Press at the opening of a two-day conference in Beijing.
"Whether it's SARS, or monkey pox, or avian influenza, or whatever the next
outbreak, the capacity that we're building is going to be very important for
global health," he said.
The international donors' conference in Beijing is focused on raising money
to fight bird flu, which has killed at least 79 people in Asia and Turkey since
2003.
A World bank official earlier told The Associated Press that donors were
expected to pledge some US$1 billion (euro822 million).
"We're anticipating a very generous EU response, we have a very strong
commitment from the U.S. (and) we expect the Japanese to come with a strong
commitment," Jim Adams, head of the World Bank's Avian Flu Task Force, said.
Most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds, but experts
fear the H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between
people, possibly sparking a pandemic.
The World Bank has said that up to US$1.5 billion (euro1.4 billion) is needed
over the next three years to fight bird flu and prepare for a pandemic. More
than US$500 million would be devoted to building country rapid response plans in
both the animal and human health sectors, the World Bank said.
About 45 percent of the funding would be spent in Vietnam, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Thailand and Laos - countries where the H5N1 virus is already
endemic, it said.
The funding conference follows a global bird flu coordination meeting held
two months ago in Geneva, which brought together more than 600 participants from
100 countries.
Adams said between 500-600 people are expected to attend the Beijing meeting,
co-sponsored by the World Bank, European Commission and the Chinese government.
Based on the damage that severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, caused
to Asia's economy after it emerged in southern China in 2002, the World Bank
says a flu pandemic in humans could result in US$800 billion (euro640 billion)
in global losses in a year.
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