WHO warns against bird flu 'scaremongering'

October 18, 2005 - 2:22AM

The World Health Organisation has warned against "scaremongering" as avian influenza gains a toehold in Europe.

As authorities in Turkey and Romania fight to contain the spread of the H5N1 virus among flocks, and other European governments grow increasingly jumpy, fears have risen that the bird disease could spark a human outbreak here.

But Michael Ryan, the UN health agency's pandemic alert chief, sought today to calm public concern about the role of migratory birds, after the virus spread from its Asian hotbed across Russia and into the rest of Europe.

"Clearly migratory birds may be implicated in spreading this disease and we may see avian influenza in other countries because of that," Ryan said.

"But there are many, many other reasons for bird die-offs in populations, be it infectious or toxic," he said when asked about probes into wild bird deaths elsewhere in south-eastern Europe.

"So over-associating die-offs in particular bird species with avian influenza would be to risk scaremongering. The specific issue is to make sure that unusual die-offs are properly investigated."

While avian influenza primarily affects birds, the H5N1 strain has killed more than 60 people in South-East Asia since 2003.

Human-to-human transmission has been extremely limited, but experts fear the bird virus could eventually combine with its human variant and mutate into a lethal, fast-spreading flu like those which killed tens of millions worldwide in the past.

Stepped up surveillance is vital to lower the risk that the H5N1 virus will jump the species barrier, and governments must brace for a massive outbreak, the WHO has warned repeatedly.

As experts try to develop a potential vaccine for what is still a hypothetical virus, the WHO is building a stockpile of Tamiflu, an antiviral drug which it believes could serve as a first line of defence.

Governments are also creating stockpiles to help cope with an emergency, but the WHO is not advising people to stockpile the drug themselves, Ryan noted.

