China yesterday urged other governments to share more information about bird flu cases in people to prevent a human pandemic, and an official report said many residents in China's vast hinterland are uninformed about the disease.
Few developing countries other than China have submitted bird flu samples from humans to international organizations, the state-run China Daily newspaper said, citing an unidentified Agriculture Ministry official.
"The international community should further improve the information-sharing mechanism for the disease," the official was quoted as saying.
PHOTO: AP
The report came as health experts were attending a WHO conference in Geneva that was meant to produce guidelines for public health officials to stop a possible human pandemic in its early stages.
The WHO's Asia-Pacific regional director, Doctor Shigeru Omi, criticized China's Agriculture Ministry in December for refusing to share samples from animal outbreaks. The ministry did not respond.
China could reap an economic windfall if it creates an effective bird flu vaccine or treatment before foreign competitors that might be helped by access to its virus samples.
On Monday, China's official Xinhua News Agency quoted pandemic control expert Zhong Nanshan as saying bird flu has not been sufficiently publicized, especially in some rural areas.
"Some people there [in the countryside] are not alert for bird flu," Zhong said, who is also a delegate to the top panel that advises the country's parliament, currently in session.
He said people should realize that other animals, such as cats and pigs, may carry the virus.
China this week reported its ninth bird flu death out of 15 confirmed human cases.
Meanwhile US federal health officials announced plans on Monday for a second vaccine to protect people from bird flu because the virus spreading among birds in Asia, Africa and Europe is changing.
The US government has several million doses of an earlier bird flu vaccine, but it was based on a sample of virus taken from Vietnam in 2004. It is believed to have mutated enough since then that the form now circulating in Africa and Europe may be different, health officials said.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said on Monday that he had authorized the National Institutes of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin working on a second vaccine for humans.
Government flu experts would not speculate on whether the earlier vaccine would still protect most people. They said only that they believe it would be less effective than a new vaccine based on a more recent virus sample.
Health officials plan to base the second vaccine on a sample taken from Indonesia last year, said Ruben Donis, leader of the molecular genetics team at the CDC's influenza branch.
The virus circulating in Indonesia is related to the Vietnamese virus, but it is not a descendant and causes a different immune system response, he said.
A vaccine based on the Vietnamese virus would be protective for people in the Vietnam region, but less effective against viruses circulating elsewhere, Donis said.
He said that perhaps scientists will one day develop a vaccine that protects against several different forms of bird flu.
The US government is already spending US$250 million for about 8 million doses to protect against the Vietnamese version of bird flu.
Federal officials contracted with two companies -- Chiron Corp. and Sanofi Pasteur -- for those doses, and most already have been produced, said Bill Hall, a spokesman for Health and Human Services (HHS).
The second vaccine must be developed and tested, and HHS had no estimate for the cost of that work.
Margaret Chan, who is spearheading the WHO efforts against the virus, said it poses a greater challenge to the world than any previous infectious disease.
Poland on Monday confirmed its first outbreak of the disease, saying laboratory tests found that two wild swans died of the lethal strain.
Several cats have also tested positive for the deadly strain in Austria's first reported case of the disease spreading to an animal other than a bird, officials in that country said on Monday.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS