World Bank Creates $500 Million
Loan Plan to Combat Bird Flu
Mon Nov 7, 2005 20:52
64.140.158.106
World Bank Creates $500 Million Loan Plan to Combat Bird Flu
By TOM WRIGHT
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/health/07cnd-flu.html?pagewanted=print
GENEVA, Nov.7 - The World Bank announced today the creation of a $500 million loan program aimed at getting money swiftly to poor Southeast Asian countries that are struggling to combat an outbreak of avian flu among birds.
It also warned that a global human pandemic, should it occur, could cause $800 billion in global economic losses. The bank announced the loan program, which is subject to approval by its board next week, at a meeting in Geneva where experts are trying to forge a strategy to stop bird flu from developing into a full-blown pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Jim Adams, who heads the World Bank's bird flu task force, said the bank could "put that money on the table very quickly" to help countries, especially poor nations in Southeast Asia, to finance programs aimed at containing the spread of bird flu among poultry. The World Bank hopes a meeting of donor nations scheduled for January in Shanghai will pledge a similar amount, Mr. Adams said.
The European Union's health commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, also said today that the organization was donating $35 million to help Asia fight bird flu.
"The E.U. should have reacted more quickly to help Southeast Asia to tackle the problem," Mr. Kyprianou said while on a visit to Vietnam, The Associated Press reported.
The funding pledges come amid a growing consensus that stopping the spread of the H5N1 virus among birds in Asia, where millions of birds have died, is the best strategy in fending off any possibility of a human pandemic. That is largely because there is as yet no vaccination known to work successfully against the virus in humans, and a short supply of antiviral medicines to treat humans once they get sick.
But Asian countries hit by bird flu complain they don't have the resources to pay for these programs. Indonesia's development minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, told the conference that early warning systems aimed at quickly sealing off areas where bird deaths occur are "not in place because of funding."
"The more I find out about an influenza pandemic and the lack of readiness, the more I am concerned," said David Nabarro, the United Nation's flu coordinator. "But I am more hopeful about the scope for international cooperation."
So far, 63 people have died from avian flu, and 124 people have been infected, all residents from agricultural areas of Southeast Asia who came into contact with infected birds. But health experts believes the virus will soon mutate to a strain more easily transmitted between humans.
"It is only a matter of time before an avian flu virus - most likely H5N1 - acquires the ability to be transmitted from human to human, sparking the outbreak of human pandemic influenza," said Lee Jong Wook , the director general of the World Health Organization.
The organization has advised nations to build up stockpiles of antiviral medicines to cover a fifth of their population in case of a pandemic. But poor countries say they cannot afford the drugs, and are demanding the right to make cheap generic versions.
Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, said today that it had begun discussions with eight companies, including generic drug makers, and governments like Taiwan and Vietnam, over requests to allow them to produce its Tamiflu antiviral medicine.
Roche said it had received 150 requests for licenses to make the drug, which is known to work against the symptoms of bird flu in humans, and would make a final selection of potential partners by the end of November.
The company, which has drawn criticism for moving slowly to ramp up production, said it would be able to produce 300 million treatments of Tamiflu in 2007, tenfold its capacity in 2003, due to an increase in manufacturing capacity.
Meanwhile, flu continues to spread rapidly among birds. On Sunday, Chinese officials said a fourth outbreak had occurred in the northeast of the country, killing more than 8,940 chickens. More than 150 million birds have died or been culled since bird flu emerged in Asia two years ago. The virus recently spread to birds in Eastern Europe and Russia. It is only a matter of time before migratory birds take the disease to the Middle East and Africa, the World Health Organization warns.
China also asked the W.H.O. to help investigate whether three people initially diagnosed with pneumonia, including a girl who died, had instead been infected with bird flu. China has not yet reported any human deaths from the virus.
The World Bank's lead Asian economist, Milan Brahmbhatt, said a human pandemic could also cause economic losses of $800 billion, or 2 percent of annual global output. A similar percentage of economic output was lost in Asia in 2003 because of the epidemic of SARS, the respiratory illness, which killed around 800 people and caused widespread panic, the World Bank said.
Deaths in the United States could reach 200,000, with 700,000 hospitalizations, and $200 billion in economic losses, the bank said in another estimate, based on study of an outbreak of a flu after World War I.
So far, bird flu has cost more than $10 billion, the W.H.O. estimates, due mainly to the impact on the poultry industry, and costs associated with mass cullings. "Costs so far have been relatively limited," said Mr. Brahmbhatt, "but they could rise going forward."
==============================
By TOM WRIGHT
International Herald Tribune
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/health/07cnd-flu.html?pagewanted=print
GENEVA, Nov.7 - The World Bank announced today the creation of a $500 million loan program aimed at getting money swiftly to poor Southeast Asian countries that are struggling to combat an outbreak of avian flu among birds.
It also warned that a global human pandemic, should it occur, could cause $800 billion in global economic losses. The bank announced the loan program, which is subject to approval by its board next week, at a meeting in Geneva where experts are trying to forge a strategy to stop bird flu from developing into a full-blown pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Jim Adams, who heads the World Bank's bird flu task force, said the bank could "put that money on the table very quickly" to help countries, especially poor nations in Southeast Asia, to finance programs aimed at containing the spread of bird flu among poultry. The World Bank hopes a meeting of donor nations scheduled for January in Shanghai will pledge a similar amount, Mr. Adams said.
The European Union's health commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, also said today that the organization was donating $35 million to help Asia fight bird flu.
"The E.U. should have reacted more quickly to help Southeast Asia to tackle the problem," Mr. Kyprianou said while on a visit to Vietnam, The Associated Press reported.
The funding pledges come amid a growing consensus that stopping the spread of the H5N1 virus among birds in Asia, where millions of birds have died, is the best strategy in fending off any possibility of a human pandemic. That is largely because there is as yet no vaccination known to work successfully against the virus in humans, and a short supply of antiviral medicines to treat humans once they get sick.
But Asian countries hit by bird flu complain they don't have the resources to pay for these programs. Indonesia's development minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, told the conference that early warning systems aimed at quickly sealing off areas where bird deaths occur are "not in place because of funding."
"The more I find out about an influenza pandemic and the lack of readiness, the more I am concerned," said David Nabarro, the United Nation's flu coordinator. "But I am more hopeful about the scope for international cooperation."
So far, 63 people have died from avian flu, and 124 people have been infected, all residents from agricultural areas of Southeast Asia who came into contact with infected birds. But health experts believes the virus will soon mutate to a strain more easily transmitted between humans.
"It is only a matter of time before an avian flu virus - most likely H5N1 - acquires the ability to be transmitted from human to human, sparking the outbreak of human pandemic influenza," said Lee Jong Wook , the director general of the World Health Organization.
The organization has advised nations to build up stockpiles of antiviral medicines to cover a fifth of their population in case of a pandemic. But poor countries say they cannot afford the drugs, and are demanding the right to make cheap generic versions.
Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, said today that it had begun discussions with eight companies, including generic drug makers, and governments like Taiwan and Vietnam, over requests to allow them to produce its Tamiflu antiviral medicine.
Roche said it had received 150 requests for licenses to make the drug, which is known to work against the symptoms of bird flu in humans, and would make a final selection of potential partners by the end of November.
The company, which has drawn criticism for moving slowly to ramp up production, said it would be able to produce 300 million treatments of Tamiflu in 2007, tenfold its capacity in 2003, due to an increase in manufacturing capacity.
Meanwhile, flu continues to spread rapidly among birds. On Sunday, Chinese officials said a fourth outbreak had occurred in the northeast of the country, killing more than 8,940 chickens. More than 150 million birds have died or been culled since bird flu emerged in Asia two years ago. The virus recently spread to birds in Eastern Europe and Russia. It is only a matter of time before migratory birds take the disease to the Middle East and Africa, the World Health Organization warns.
China also asked the W.H.O. to help investigate whether three people initially diagnosed with pneumonia, including a girl who died, had instead been infected with bird flu. China has not yet reported any human deaths from the virus.
The World Bank's lead Asian economist, Milan Brahmbhatt, said a human pandemic could also cause economic losses of $800 billion, or 2 percent of annual global output. A similar percentage of economic output was lost in Asia in 2003 because of the epidemic of SARS, the respiratory illness, which killed around 800 people and caused widespread panic, the World Bank said.
Deaths in the United States could reach 200,000, with 700,000 hospitalizations, and $200 billion in economic losses, the bank said in another estimate, based on study of an outbreak of a flu after World War I.
So far, bird flu has cost more than $10 billion, the W.H.O. estimates, due mainly to the impact on the poultry industry, and costs associated with mass cullings. "Costs so far have been relatively limited," said Mr. Brahmbhatt, "but they could rise going forward."
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