Confusion, panic warnings mark Western response to bird flu threat

By Tony Czuczka Oct 21, 2005, 3:24 GMT

Washington - Bird flu is advancing into Europe, and only one thing is clear: No Western country has a master plan against the threat to humans.

First, scientists can't agree on the severity of the risk. And people in many countries are being spooked by wildly varying death estimates for a human flu pandemic and furious debate about which health measures deserve priority.

'We need to be prepared, but we really should not panic about it,' Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's head of infectious disease research, recently told a radio station. 'And when you see people playing with numbers, that confuses people.'

European governments, too, have dithered. That partly reflects disagreement among experts about the risk of migratory wild birds' from Asia infecting fowl in Europe, first raised when infected wild ducks were found recently in Romania.

With bird flu confirmed this week in Russia, the 25-nation European Union - of which Russia in not a member - agreed Thursday on new biosecurity steps, including for governments to make sure that poultry farms keep their birds inside.

In Germany, several regions already had a free-range ban. But Lower Saxony, the biggest poultry-producing state, needed government prodding and was expected to act only by this weekend. After some deliberation, Austria and Poland also set free-range bans Thursday.

'Europe gives the impression that it has been surprised by the approach of bird flu,' commented the Dutch daily Trouw.

Governments are spending millions on buying vaccines and anti- viral drugs to protect people against any mutated strain of the bird flu, and the threat is prompting doomsday scenarios of millions dying worldwide - up to 150 million in a U.N. envoy's estimate.

The U.S. government has ordered 100 million dollars in flu vaccine, and President George W. Bush held a highly publicized White House meeting with drug makers this month to prod them into more vaccine production.

Problem is, no one knows exactly what a mutant bird flu virus strain that jumps to humans will look like, making advance production hard.

Some experts have said for months that betting on a vaccine is risky. One leading critic is University of Minnesota disease researcher Michael Osterholm, who advises the U.S. government and warns that a human pandemic could bring the world economy to its knees.

'Vaccine would have no impact on the course of the virus in the first months and would likely play an extremely limited role worldwide during the following 12 to 18 months of the pandemic,' he wrote in the July issue of Foreign Affairs.

Osterholm also called for rigorous planning by government, business and health providers - 'a detailed operational blueprint for how to get a population through one to three years of a pandemic'. <!--page-->

The United States has been working for years on a broad plan for defending against a flu pandemic. The blueprint should be ready 'soon', U.S. health department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said Thursday. E.U. officials are working on further measures as well.

Health officials have also focussed on stockpiling antiviral drugs such as Swiss drug maker Roche's Tamiflu, which fight influenza infections once they've happened.

But production is limited - though Roche reportedly is in talks about letting others make generic versions of the drug - and experts worry that widespread use of such drugs could foment drug-resistant virus strains.

Amid reports that European pharmacies were selling out of Tamiflu, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week there's no need for the general public to stock up.

Michael Ryan, head of WHO's pandemic alert team, also insisted 'that the bulk of this problem is still in Asia'. But panic is already spreading.

Britain's health department was forced to slap down 'misleading' newspaper reports that the government would close schools and ban sports events in case of a flu pandemic.

Sales of chicken and turkey have plunged by up to 30 per cent in France despite repeated assurances by health experts that poultry meat poses no flu threat.

Experts say the simplest solution may be for people to get their regular seasonal flu shots. Fewer infected people means fewer chances for the bird-flu virus to hook onto a human and mutate into a high- risk strain.

Like many experts, Fauci fears the world is overdue for a human flu pandemic.

'We're watching it closely in Asia,' he said. 'Hopefully it will reach a dead end. But it might not.'