- The Chinese government has failed to provide global health
agencies with vital information on recent bird flu outbreaks - caused by
a lethal mutating virus that experts say could rapidly spread around the
world and potentially kill tens of millions of people.
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- Three outbreaks of avian flu have affected western China
in recent months but the World Health Organisation (WHO) and other international
agencies have received neither the information nor virus samples from infected
birds that they requested from Beijing.
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- The UN body needs genetic sequencing information to track
the development of the virus and ward off a potential pandemic.
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- "It is a matter of urgency," said Roy Wadia,
the WHO's spokesman in Beijing. "We stress that this virus is highly
unpredictable and versatile and can change any time. It is highly dangerous.
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- "As far as I know, the ministry of agriculture has
not sent any samples to any international reference labs or any WHO collaborating
centres."
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- On the advice of the WHO, 25 governments around the world
have started stockpiling a vaccine, Tamiflu, in readiness for a potential
outbreak of bird flu in humans.
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- Last week the Government announced that it would buy
two million doses to protect key medical and emergency staff against a
possible pandemic.
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- Although a team of international experts was allowed
to visit the scene of an outbreak in western Qinghai province last month,
the Beijing government has not responded to a request made on June 17 by
agencies led by the WHO to visit Xinjiang, near the Kazakhstan border,
where there were further reported infections in domestic geese.
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- The fact that migratory birds, previously immune to the
H5N1 bird flu virus, died in the recent outbreak is a very ominous sign,
experts say, indicating that the virus has mutated.
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- It also suggests that infection will spread more rapidly
around the world because the birds can fly hundreds of miles a day. Over
the past two years the virus has devastated poultry flocks in Asia and
killed at least 57 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia,
which reported its first three human deaths this week - a government official
and his two young daughters living in a suburb of the capital, Jakarta.
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- All the victims have been infected after contact with
birds. The fear is that the virus will mutate into a highly contagious
form that could be passed from human to human.
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- Officials at China's health and agriculture ministries
refused to comment on the apparent lack of co-operation with international
agencies.
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- Independent researchers are dismayed by Beijing's attitude,
particularly in view of its initial cover-up of the Sars crisis more than
two years ago.
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- The severe respiratory virus killed 800 people around
the world, affecting 8,000 more and causing widespread economic chaos.
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- It emerged in November 2002 and is believed to have originated
in China's southern Guangdong province before being spread around the world
by air travellers.
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- "It might be another clumsy attempt at a cover-up.
It might just be plain, everyday incompetence. Either way you'd think they
would know better by now," one international scientist said.
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- He said that suspicions about Beijing's approach were
heightened when independent scientists researching the avian flu outbreaks
had their work thwarted by government officials. Guan Yi, a scientist from
Hong Kong University who led the international research on the Sars virus,
said last week that the authorities had tried to stop his team's work on
bird flu after he published an article in the journal Nature, warning of
the global threat posed by the virus and linking it to other cases in China.
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- The Chinese government's chief veterinary official publicly
condemned his research, saying it had been conducted without permission
and "lacked credibility". The next day, officials visited Dr
Guan's laboratory in Guangdong province and told him to stop his research
and hand over samples, citing a breach of safety regulations.
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- Further disquiet has been expressed by international
researchers about China's use of drugs designed to combat avian flu. Although
China first reported a flu outbreak in February 2004, it emerged recently
that its farmers had been trying to suppress a serious outbreak for more
than eight years by feeding poultry with an antiviral drug meant for humans,
in breach of international livestock guidelines.
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- As one of two main drugs used for treating human influenza,
Amantadine should have had a key role in fighting any future pandemic.
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- Instead, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has become resistant
to the drug because it was systematically fed to poultry.
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- The Chinese government denies reports that it encouraged
its farmers to use the drug.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.
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ws/2005/07/24/wchina24.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/24/ixworld.html
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