UN urges nations to prepare for pandemic
http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/2006/01/25/1410363-sun.html
GENEVA -- Countries must speed up preparations to deal with an "inevitable" human influenza pandemic, which could strike soon, a senior United Nations official warned yesterday.
David Nabarro, the UN co-ordinator on avian and human influenza, said countries must work fast because the H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate into a form that spreads easily between people much faster than some officials seem to believe.
Experts fear that a mutation in the virus, which has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia since late 2003 and killed at least 82 people worldwide, could spark a pandemic, killing millions of people.
"I say to them please act as though it's going to start tomorrow. Don't keep putting off the difficult issues," Nabarro said on the sidelines of the World Health Organization's annual week-long executive board meeting. "It may not be months, it could mean we are going to get human-to-human transmission tomorrow."
So far, the virus remains hard for people to catch, with most human cases traced to contact with infected birds. The UN health agency has confirmed 151 human cases in the last three years.
But when asked if he believed a human flu pandemic was inevitable, Nabarro answered: "Yes."
TAMIFLU BEST DEFENCE
He was asked specifically about Swiss pharmaceutical Roche Holding AG's drug Tamiflu, which experts believe would be the best defence in the initial phases of any global influenza pandemic.
Roche owns the right to produce and supply Tamiflu, but it has come under increasing international pressure to ease its monopoly grip on the drug as governments have sought to increase their stockpiles.
Under World Trade Organization rules, countries can issue so-called "compulsory licences" to disregard patent rights, but only after negotiating with the patent owners and paying them adequate compensation. If they declare a public health emergency, governments can skip the negotiating.