Avian flu 'to come in from PNG'
From: AAP
By Lloyd Jones in Port Moresby
February 23, 2006
ONCE the deadly avian flu reached Papua New Guinea it would quickly spread to its near neighbour Australia along migratory bird flyways, a World Health Organisation (WHO) expert has warned.
Disease specialist Dr Luo Dapeng is assisting PNG health, quarantine and agriculture authorities prepare a contingency plan for the arrival of the H5N1 strain of the virus.
This month more than a dozen countries reported their first outbreaks of the deadly strain which has killed more than 90 people worldwide and prompted mass cullings of poultry.
Dr Luo believes it is inevitable avian flu will reach PNG if it is not already in the country and that it will quickly spread south to Australia with migratory birds crossing the Torres Strait.
"If something happens here, I think Australia cannot escape. I think Australia will have to help," Dr Luo told AAP in Port Moresby.
"What Australia could do is help Papua New Guinea set up a good surveillance system and get a preliminary diagnosis system in place so they can take action quickly.
"That's the way to protect people both in Papua New Guinea and in Australia."
Queensland-based medicinal chemist Professor Mark von Itzstein warned this week that bird flu was highly likely to have reached northern Australia already with birds migrating from Indonesia.
Dr Luo said that ensuring good preparedness in PNG for an outbreak was extremely important to delay the spread of the virus.
The same applied if the worst-case scenario happened and the virus evolved into a human-to-human form sparking a deadly pandemic, he said.
PNG authorities also needed to launch a public awareness campaign to ensure remote villagers understood the dangers of avian flu and the need to cull their chickens if there was an outbreak.
Villagers might be reluctant to cull an important protein source so authorities might have to pay compensation for culled birds.
The PNG Government has set up a co-ordinating committee to develop a bird flu outbreak and human pandemic response strategy based on a WHO model.
Dr Luo said migratory birds flying from Central Asia via Indonesia or from China via the Philippines were the most likely birds to carry the virus into PNG but fighting cocks smuggled by Asian workers into PNG's logging camps also posed a threat.
PNG's Western Province and the Sepik River region with their vast wetlands populated by migratory waterbirds and waders were the high risk areas, he said.
While backyard chickens were not as numerous in PNG as in Asian countries, the isolation of many villages posed a public health awareness problem.
"In this country, communications are not as good as in other Asian countries where they have television and see pictures every day and know how harmful this avian flu is for the people.
"We have to do health awareness campaigns in the remote villages so they can report if their poultry have died."
Another big problem was PNG's underfunded and overburdened health system, already struggling to cope with an HIV/AIDS crisis, Dr Luo said.
PNG's quarantine inspection service tests chickens and ducks in Western Province for the virus but blood samples have to be sent to Australia for analysis.
Dr Luo said preliminary diagnosis labs needed to be set up in PNG quickly to ensure a fast response to contain any outbreak by culling poultry in areas where infections occurred.
If a human pandemic occurred, PNG would need donor assistance to pay for Tamiflu drugs to protect people against the virus, he said.
Australian Deputy High Commissioner to PNG Ann Harrap said the PNG Government had yet to ask the Australian Government or other donors for funding to help prepare for the avian flu threat.
"Were they to do so we would obviously consider it in the context of other priorities and demonstrated performance in that area."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18247398-29277,00.html
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