CAIRO: The United States will provide an additional $320 million to aid in the fight against bird flu, a US official said on Saturday during an international bird flu conference being held in Egypt.
The US had pledged $629 million last December during a conference in New Delhi that raised $2.7 billion to fight against the avian flu, which the UN says could cause a global crisis.
The United States is pledging an additional $320 million in international assistance for avian and pandemic influenza, said Paula Dobriansky, US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs told the conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Dobriansky said she hoped other countries would increase their aid and warned against complacency towards the disease, according to a text of her speech furnished by the US embassy in Cairo.
The H5N1 virus strain first emerged in Asia in 2003 and has since caused some 245 deaths in humans, with Indonesia and Vietnam among the worst hit countries, according to World Health Organization figures.
Scientists fear that H5N1 will eventually mutate into a form that is much more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
According to a World Bank report, even a mild flu pandemic might kill 1.4 million people worldwide, while the death toll from a severe global outbreak could reach 70 million.
The report also said a flu pandemic of moderate intensity could cut global gross domestic product by two percent, while a severe flu pandemic would slash global gross domestic product by nearly five percent, or more than three trillion dollars.
Ambassador John Lange, special representative on avian and pandemic influenza at the US Department of State, told Voice of America ahead of the conference that avian influenza is most prevalent in Egypt, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Indonesia, and other countries in Southeast Asia. “Several recent outbreaks have occurred in these countries, reminding leaders of the gravity of the problem.
Bird flu first appeared in Egypt in February 2006. Since then, 50 people have been infected with the virus known as H5N1, with 22 fatalities. The country is the worst hit outside Asia by avian flu.
“Mortality rate in Egypt stands at 44 percent, which is much lower than world average at 63.3 percent, said Abdel Rahman Shahin, spokesperson to the Ministry of Health. “But the huge loss is in animal wealth.
He explained that outbreak of the virus took a huge toll on Egypt’s poultry industry, with losses estimated at LE 2 billion.
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released in July, Egypt has informed that avian influenza is endemic throughout the country s poultry. Egyptian authorities said that 1,086 outbreaks caused by the H5N1 virus had been reported since February 2006, for the most part in the Nile Delta region. More than one million birds are said to have died from the virus and almost nine million culled.-AFP with additional reporting by Daily News Egypt.
