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US health secretary winds up bird flu trip to Asia
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-10-16 13:34
US Health Secretary Michael Leavitt leaves Southeast Asia Sunday after a
week-long tour studying how the region has battled to contain bird flu, amid
fears that a global pandemic is inevitable.
Leavitt has for the past six days held talks with health officials in
Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam -- the region so far worst hit by the virus
and considered the most likely epicentre of any human epidemic.
After saying Friday that surveillance and transparency were the keys to
preventing the global spread of the virus, Leavitt said the tour had helped his
understanding of the disease in the region and how best to tackle it.
"What I gain from a trip like this are pieces of a puzzle that merge in my
mind and that would be very helpful if the day comes when I have to take
decisions related to the containment" of the disease, he said.
"There is a lot of unknown here... It's hard to visualise... until you see
the interaction of the public health with the economic reality and the cultural
norms," he added, en route to the northern town of Haiphong Saturday.
All but a handful of the 60 or so fatal human cases of the virus since the
current outbreak first surfaced in late 2003 have been reported in Vietnam,
Thailand and Cambodia.
The international scientific community fears that if the deadly H5N1 strain
of the virus manages to mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between
humans, then a worst case scenario could see tens of millions of people die.
Experts have repeatedly warned that any suspected cases be reported and
contained immediately, to prevent the virus spreading -- something Leavitt
compared to the outbreak of a forest fire.
US Secretary of Health and Human Services
Michael Leavitt(L) shakes hands with Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van
Khai in Hanoi. Transparency will be the key in the fight against a
possible bird flu pandemic, Leavitt said in Hanoi, calling on all nations
to commit to share information about the
threat.[AFP] | "Every time there is a fire, there is a spark. If some people are there when
the spark happens, they can simply put the fire out by smothering it with their
foot," he said.
"If it allows to burn for any period of time, it can become uncontainable.
"With an avian influenza outbreak, if we can identify it quickly enough and
get to the source, we can carefully contain it sparing the rest of the world
from its damage," he added.
Vietnam, whose poultry production is essentially made up of family
small-holdings, launched a poultry vaccination campaign across swathes of the
country several weeks ago.
"The chances of getting 100 percent of them is very low but they're making
substantial efforts and every time they do, they are diminishing the probability
of a fatality," Leavitt said.
He suggested that levels of preparation that were not in place during
pandemics such as the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, in which 20 to 40 million
people died, gave authorities a distinct advantage.
"We probably have more knowledge today about H5N1 virus progress than we have
ever had any time in public health history on any approaching virus," he said.
Earlier this week, he stressed that transparency was key in the fight against
a possible pandemic, calling on all nations to commit to sharing information on
the threat.
"In a pandemic, surveillance is our first line of defense," Leavitt told
journalists in the Vietnamese capital. "Surveillance only works if transparency
and timely sharing of information and a spirit of cooperation exist," he said.
"We called upon the government of Vietnam and other nations around the world
to join us to an absolute commitment for cooperation and transparency," he said.
"It is becoming increasingly evident that anything other than transparency
creates social, political and economical destruction," he said.
"No nation can avoid preparing for the possibility of the pandemic, whether
it be caused by the H5N1 virus or by another one," Leavitt said. "It is safe to
say no one is adequately prepared and we all have work to do".
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