Putting things in prespective - help the world's children to fight bird flu

Oct 19 2005

Amid the escalating panic in Europe centered around attempts to halt the spread among the bird population of bird flu, a senior health expert has said that swift action against age-old child killers such as diarrhea and pneumonia could help the world get ready to combat a bird flu pandemic.

Dr. Nils Daulaire (.MSword) , president and chief executive officer of the Global Health Council, says there is little that can be done to stop avian flu if it comes in the next two years, but 6 million children can be saved, and something can be done about a pandemic flu if it comes in the next five to 10 years.

Daulaire says this, in turn, could help create the capacity to cope with outbreaks of new diseases such as H5N1 avian flu.

The council believes the key lies in building up so-called public health systems.

H5N1 avian influenza has moved across several Asian countries, decimating flocks of poultry, and now has been found in Europe, in Romania and possibly Greece.

To date it does not appear to easily infect people, but it has sickened at least 117 in four countries and killed 60 of them.

However if it becomes a human disease, it has the potential to kill millions or tens of millions of people within a few months.

It seems it will take at least six months to make a vaccine against it, and the only two drugs which reduce its effects are in short supply.

As influenza spreads quickly, quarantines are unlikely to be effective.

In blunt, but realistic terms, virtually all experts agree that the world is relatively helpless when it comes to stopping H5N1 if it manifests itself before vaccine and drug production are available worldwide.

Hospitals, clinics and other health systems are already stretched to capacity, and a pandemic will be difficult to cope with.

Although it is not the primary intention at this stage, global health specialists say accelerating the capacity to make and distribute vaccines and drugs will have immediate benefits on other, equally deadly but less acute diseases.

Daulaire, at a briefing sponsored by the National Press Foundation, reminds that every three seconds a child dies from pneumonia, from diarrhea, from neonatal causes, and from malaria.

All preventable with what he terms 'terrific interventions' that save lives today.

The World Health Organization researchers published a study earlier this year showing that 6 million children who die each year from preventable diseases could be saved if richer nations gave another $5 billion a year.

The formula is based on a few actions: Vaccinating every child against diseases such as measles and pneumonia, treating every child with diarrhea with rehydration salts, providing inexpensive antibiotics, antimalarial drugs and insecticide-treated mosquito nets, ensuring every child is breast-fed from birth and giving malnourished children low-cost vitamin A supplements.

Although the $5 billion does not include upgrades to health systems, not much would be needed to deliver many of the drugs, vaccines and vitamins.

Daulaire says the infrastructure has to start in countries where conditions are the worst, which are the very countries where H5N1 avian influenza now affects people, such as Vietnam and Indonesia.

He says that putting these measures into place would have the effect of helping the world cope more effectively with the inevitable pandemics of disease, whether they are bird flu, another type of influenza, or something completely new and unexpected.