Turkish Bird Flu Spreads,
As European Worry Rises
By JOHN W. MILLER
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
January 10, 2006
BRUSSELS – With 15 people believed infected by the potentially deadly strain of bird flu, and three dead, Turkish officials struggled to determine why they already had more human cases in a few months than China has had in 10 years since the virus was detected there.
The spread of H5N1 also has restoked fears of more human cases around Europe, where countries are prepared in widely varying degrees despite efforts at coordination by the European Union.
More than 60 people in Turkey have been hospitalized and are undergoing tests for H5N1, while China reported its eighth case of human bird flu yesterday, in a six-year-old boy. Most worrying to officials is the report Sunday of three cases of H5N1 infection in the Turkish capital, Ankara, 1,000 kilometers to the west of the first Turkish outbreaks. Scientists fear migrating birds are carrying H5N1 west. They say each human case increases the chances that the virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible from one human to another, instead of only from birds to humans.
Altogether, the virus has killed 74 people in Asia. Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag said his country would always be at risk because it lies in the path of migrating birds. [n]Turkish health officials said they had killed thousands of birds in areas where the outbreaks have occurred but that some small-town residents were resisting giving up their animals.
The growing list of human H5N1 infections in an EU neighbor and prospective member poses a challenge to EU officials trying for the first time to mount a bloc-wide effort to protect the union's 450 million citizens against a public-health threat.
The EU says it is leading a worldwide fight against H5N1, spearheading a donors' conference with 90 countries in Beijing next week that aims to raise $1 billion, and coordinating a broad effort among its members. But critics say its mission is hampered by the different budgets and strategies of its 25 members.
The European Commission has sent its own experts to Turkey. Yesterday, its member countries voted to restrict imports of feathers from six countries around Turkey, including Iran and Iraq. The EU has banned imports of live birds and poultry products from Turkey since October.
In Brussels, the response to bird flu, which has been building momentum since 2003, has set in motion a new EU-wide response network. "If you have a single market where people and goods cross borders, you have to manage that space," says spokesman Michael Mann.
In May 2005, the EU set up the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention with headquarters outside of Stockholm and an annual budget of €17.2 million ($20.9 million) and 52 full- and part-time employees. It is meant to fight AIDS, flus and communicative diseases like severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The center has three scientists in Turkey working with World Health Organization and European Commission officials. The center's officials have been studying H5N1 since August, said spokesman Ben Duncan.
In the U.S., Congress has approved spending $3.8 billion to prepare for a bird-flu pandemic.
The EU has issued guidelines to national governments. The problem, say health analysts, is that under EU law, countries aren't obliged to follow them. Every country must pay for its own efforts, putting richer governments in a better position to protect their citizens.
The resulting patchwork efforts are insufficient, argues Anne Hoel of the European Public Health Alliance, an umbrella organization for 100 public-health groups around Europe. "The ECDC doesn't have the staff or budget to run an effective prevention program," she said. "If there's a pandemic, we'll know exactly what the U.K. is doing, and we'll wonder why France isn't doing the same thing."
The Czech government, for example, has ordered the Tamiflu antiviral drug made by Roche Holding AG for 6% of its population of 10 million. "If the disease starts, we'll buy more," said Jan Vytopil, spokesman for the Czech mission to the EU. Meanwhile, in Belgium, officials ordered Relenza, made by GlaxoSmithKline PLC, for 30% of the population.
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