$2 billion to fight bird flu

At an international conference in Beijing almost $2 billion has been pledged to stop the spread of bird flu.

The money promised by wealthy nations was well in excess of the initial target of 1.2 billion expected by the World Bank.

The threat posed by the virus was emphasised by reports of new deaths in Turkey and China.

Chinese authorities say a 35-year-old woman in the southwest of the country has died of bird flu.

The woman, who apparently was a poultry slaughterer, takes the Chinese human death toll from the virus to six.

The cause of the death is yet to be confirmed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Meanwhile in Turkey an 11-year-old girl has reportedly died of suspected bird flu, while in neighbouring Iraq, the panic is spreading after a girl who died on Tuesday has been tested for the virus.

The 14-year-old girl who died of a fever lived in the Kurdish region close to Turkish and Iranian borders, near a lake which is a destination for migratory birds flying south from Turkey.

According to the World Bank, a pandemic lasting a year could cost the global economy up to $800 billion.

Should the H5N1 avian flu virus mutate and become able to transfer amongst humans, millions could die worldwide.

The EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has said the fund raising is not about charity but about self defence.

He says that of the $1.9 billion promised, around $900 million would be in the form of loans, and the rest in grants.

To date the H5N1 virus has killed a reported 79 people in six countries since late 2003, and infected at least 150 others.

The virus remains primarily a disease caught from close contact with sick birds.

Turkey latest suspected victim, who apparently died on the way to a hospital, lived in the eastern city of Erzurum.

Four children from another village in eastern Turkey have already died as the disease sweeps towards the gates of Europe and the Middle East.

According to a senior official at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) rumours of bird deaths in northern Syria are being investigated.

The money pledged at the conference in Beijing is intended to be used in poor countries to augment their ability to detect and eradicate the virus which is endemic in poultry in large parts of Asia.

The U.S. has pledged $334 million, which will be given mainly in the form of grants and technical assistance, while the total EU pledge is nearly $250 million.

Secretary-General of the U.N., Kofi Annan told the conference, the amount asked for is small compared to the cost of a pandemic which we are ill-prepared for.

Jim Adams the World Bank Vice President says it is acknowledged that if dealt with promptly, bird flu could be managed.

Of the money, he says more than half the $1.9 billion was in new commitments, not mentioned in previous aid programmes.

Dominique de Villepin the French Prime Minister has urged Europe to set up a rapid reaction group to tackle bird flu, with experts always available, ready to move without delay to new focal points.

However analysts are already saying that useful though the Beijing conference was, pledges must be converted into action.

Michael Richardson, senior research fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, says even given 6 months grace, the question remains how quickly can people be trained and clinics and facilities established.