Indonesian bird flu crisis could be start of global outbreak:...

Indonesian bird flu crisis could be start of global outbreak:
The World Today - Wednesday, 21 September , 2005
Reporter: Brendan Trembath
PETER CAVE: We're getting news in that an Indonesian girl has died in Jakarta in a hospital on Wednesday after suffering from bird flu symptoms. Four Indonesians are already confirmed dead, that makes her the fifth in Indonesia.

Health experts say they're worried a bird flu crisis in Indonesia marks the beginning of a global outbreak.

The World Health Organisation fears that an influenza pandemic could break out if the virus mutates and spreads more easily from birds to humans, or more worrying still, from human to human.

The Indonesian Government has announced new measures to stop bird flu from spreading, including the forced hospitalisation of people suspected of having the disease.

Australian health experts say an outbreak on Australia's doorstep can't be taken lightly, but they say Australia is less at risk than a poorer country like Indonesia.

Brendan Trembath reports.

(sound of chickens clucking)

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Indonesia plans to cull hundreds of thousands of chickens to try to stop the spread of the influenza virus commonly known as bird flu.

A particular strain can be deadly to humans.

More than 40 state-owned hospitals have been told to be prepared to treat bird flu patients.

Sardikin Giri Putro is a vice director of one of the hospitals.

SARDIKIN GIRI PUTRO: Our team conducted physical check for people who are in contact with birds or animals in the zoo, and two of them were found to be…. got symptoms.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: Bird flu has killed about 50 people around Asia since last year.

There've been outbreaks in South East Asian nations such as Thailand, and Central Asian countries, including Kazakhstan.

The bird flu outbreak in Indonesia, on Australia's doorstep, concerns World Health Organisation officials such as Alan Hampson.

He's a Deputy Director of the organisation's research centre in Melbourne.

ALAN HAMPSON: There is an ongoing international concern that pandemic influenza, probably based on history is almost inevitable, that it will occur at some stage, and the outbreaks we're seeing at the moment may in fact herald the early stages of that.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: When an influenza pandemic swept the globe in 1918 killing as many as 40 million people, there was no World Health Organisation. But by the '40s it had been established to fight, among other things, deadly strains of influenza.

The organisation aims to identify new strains quickly so vaccines can be produced.

Alan Hampson from the World Health Organisation says drugs are being stockpiled in case of a global outbreak.

ALAN HAMPSON: We're assuming that a pandemic may start somewhere in South East Asia or southern China or somewhere like that.

And there has been some excellent modelling work done to show that if you are quick enough at detecting what's happening, the early stages of spread of the virus in humans, and are able to get the antivirals to that point, and are able to limit the movement of people within the area where it starts, you may be able to oblate the pandemic at that point.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: That stockpile you talk about, how big is that and where is it?

ALAN HAMPSON: It will be held, I think, by the manufacturing company who has donated it to WHO, with a guarantee to ship it to where WHO wants it to be.

The stockpile in the first instance, immediately, is a million courses of treatment, with another two million courses to follow shortly.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: He doesn't want to alarm anyone, but says if there is an influenza pandemic, Australia would be relatively well off.

He says traditionally, epidemics and pandemics have taken root in less developed regions.

ALAN HAMPSON: It's pretty unlikely that we would see the beginnings of a pandemic in Australia. I think the conditions are far more conducive in South East Asia and particularly in view of the outbreaks that we're seeing.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: One way Australia could succumb to bird flu is through infected wild birds.

Researchers say migrating birds have spread the virus to some parts of Central Asia.

Australia may not have as much to worry about.

World Health Organisation official Alan Hampson.

ALAN HAMPSON: We're on a fly-way that does touch those areas that have been affected. I guess the difference is that the birds that are probably carrying this virus up into Kazakhstan and those surrounding areas are probably migratory geese.

Now, the types of birds that we see coming down into Australia are small wading birds.

Now that's not to say they can't carry the virus, but I think the chances are less, that they will be carrying this particular virus, and the chances are less that they will be in contact with domestic poultry.

PETER CAVE: Alan Hampson from the World Health Organisation.