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EU warns of virus threat

A girl chases pigeons in the company of her grandfather at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei yesterday. The government is urging residents to avoid close contact with wild birds in parks and athletic areas to avoid contracting bird flu. PHOTO: WALLY SANTANA, AP

EU foreign ministers yesterday declared the spread of bird flu from Asia into Europe a "global threat" requiring broad international cooperation.

At a special meeting, the ministers were to issue a statement saying they recognize bird flu poses a serious, global health threat if it shifts from birds to human beings and one "that requires a coordinated international reaction."

One day after bird flu was recorded in Greece's Aegean Sea islands, they also called on the EU executive commission to speed up the drafting of stronger EU rules designed to prevent, combat and eradicate bird flu.

Yesterday, Greece banned the export of live birds and poultry meat from the area where the EU's first bird flu case was detected.

Poultry from Turkey and Romania have already been banned by the EU as bird flu found there was confirmed as being the deadly H5N1 strain. Tests were also being carried out in Bulgaria and Croatia.

The draft EU statement referred to the need for the EU to coordinate any efforts to stamp out bird flu in consultation with the UN.

Seeking to calm public fears, the head of the EU's new agency for disease prevention on Monday downplayed the current risk to humans.

"The risk to human health, to public health, at this stage is minimal," said Zsuzsanna Jakab of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Meanwhile, Swiss drugmaker Roche, under pressure to increase output of its antiviral drug Tamiflu as avian flu reaches Europe, said yesterday that it would consider granting other firms licenses to make the drug.

The company said in a statement it was willing to discuss all options to increase output of the treatment, including granting sub-licenses to produce Tamiflu for emergency pandemic use to governments and other companies.

A Roche executive said the company would be willing to enter discussions with governments in Asia and with companies that believe they could make the drug on their own.

One Indian generic drugs maker, Cipla, has said it wants to start supplying governments which are building stockpiles of the drug.

"We have not yet been approached by Cipla. We would welcome if a company believes that it has the competencies then we would like an open discussion with them and therefore we are open to being approached," Reddy said.

Thailand also said earlier it would bypass Roche's patent to make its own version of Tamiflu by October next year.

Reddy said the firm had not been approached by the Thai government, but it had received a letter from another Asian government and would start negotiations with them.

Thawat Suntarjarn, head of Thailand's department of Disease Control, said a version of the drug could be put on sale before next October if serious outbreaks hit the country.

"Every country is queuing up to buy Tamiflu from Roche and we are afraid we won't be able to get enough drug when we need it. So we have to produce it ourselves," Thawat said.

Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, is the most effective antiviral drug currently available for avian flu and is one of a class of treatments recommended by the WHO for use in the event of a flu pandemic.

Roche has come under pressure in recent weeks to loosen its grasp on the patents that protect the treatment, with calls from the UN and the WHO to sweep away the commercial barriers to producing the drug.

Reddy said that companies could collaborate in Tamiflu manufacturing in order to help lift overall output, or the firm would discuss granting rival companies or governments a license to produce the drug from scratch.

Roche has donated 3 million courses of the drug to the WHO to be used as and when the world health body sees fit, and on Monday it gave a small amount of the drug to Romania, where a bird flu outbreak has also been detected.

In a sign that it is working to increase capacity, Roche said the US Food and Drug Administration had approved a manufacturing plant in the US, one of 12 production sites worldwide, to be used to make the drug.

also see stories:
Should we be worried?
H5N1: Huge threat to man, or none at all?

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