VIETNAM: Asia's lethal bird flu will not be quickly eradicated but a much-feared human influenza pandemic could be averted by overhauling local farming practices, UN agricultural and health officials said yesterday.
At a meeting in Vietnam to assess Asia's battle against the deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain, Dr Shigeru Omi, regional director of the World Health Organisation, said the virus appeared to be "evolving in ways that increasingly favour the start of a [ human] pandemic". He said the disease had appeared in animals - cats and tigers - not normally considered susceptible to influenza A viruses, while the region's large domestic duck flocks had been found carrying bird flu without displaying visible symptoms.
"The avian influenza virus is now firmly entrenched in many parts of Asia," Dr Omi said. "It is proving to be very versatile and very resilient.
"We at the WHO believe the world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic. We must all work together to make sure what is happening in the animal world does not spill over and cause health emergencies for humans."
Since 2003, avian flu has killed 46 people - about 80 per cent of those identified as infected - in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Nearly all the identified human cases appear to have contracted the virus from infected poultry, though experts have noted two possible incidents of human-to-human transmission.
International health officials fear the virus may mutate or recombine with a human flu virus into a form easily transmitted from person to person, triggering a pandemic that, if not controlled, could kill millions of people.
To prevent this, UN agricultural experts are calling for an intensive, and expensive, effort to overhaul traditional farming practices in countries such as Vietnam, where millions of small-scale farmers raise poultry and animals in unsanitary conditions close to their homes.
Traditional live bird markets and contact between different bird species are also believed to help the disease spread.