Asia-Pacific

APEC ministers meet to tackle bird flu

(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-05 13:45

DANANG, Vietnam - Agriculture and health ministers from the Asia Pacific region began a meeting in Vietnam Friday aimed at mapping out a plan to prepare for a potential bird flu pandemic.

In a speech at the opening of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting on bird flu, Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan said the group's 21 member nations need to work closely together to battle the H5N1 virus.

"At present, although the avian influenza epidemic has been pushed back, the danger of recurrence is still there," he said in Vietnam's central city of Danang. "We therefore look forward to enhancing cooperation with APEC economies to not only roll back, but also wipe out the epidemic, especially to prevent the transmission from human to human."

The H5N1 virus began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 and has since killed at least 113 people worldwide.

Experts fear the virus will mutate into a form that easily spreads from person to person, potentially sparking a global pandemic. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.

The ministers are considering an action plan that outlines measures meant to prevent - but also prepare for - a pandemic.

Officials said Australia will coordinate a regional exercise on June 7-8, with help from Singapore, to test emergency health alert communications responses.

"It's just a practice. There will be no ambulances rushing around ... it will be purely a 'desktop' simulation exercise," Neil Head, an official with government-run agency Emergency Management Australia, said on the sidelines of the meeting.

Helena Studdert, director of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's APEC branch, said that so far, eight APEC members have agreed to participate in the drill as "principal players." She did not identify the eight countries.

"We think it's a very important first step in testing (the) regional response through communication ," she said.