The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that China
should learn a lesson from the belated confirmation of a human case
of bird flu by concentrating on the present challenges like
publicity, strengthening surveillance and improving
communications.
"From a purely public health point of view, now in 2006, it
makes no difference whether China turns out to have had 10 or 20 or
more cases in 2003 that have only just been discovered," said Roy
Wadia, WHO Beijing office spokesman. That's because the virus
facing China in 2006 is very different from that of 2003, he
said.
Wadia told Xinhua in an interview that the important thing at
the moment was to focus on the challenges China is now facing --
"so that we as a world can collectively prepare better for a
possible pandemic."
"There was no outbreak in poultry when this case appeared which
again highlights the importance of strengthening surveillance in
the animal sector," Wadia said.
Even if there were no reported animal outbreaks when human cases
were picked up in China public health authorities should keep
warning people, especially farmers and others at high risk, to be
careful and protect themselves, he added. That would also push
agriculture and animal health authorities to investigate possible
outbreaks in poultry.
The spokesman said the revelation of the 2003 case showed a lack
of internal communication in the government structure. The Ministry
of Health was not informed about the positive test results when
military researchers discovered the man was in fact an H5N1 case,
according to WHO.
"The Ministry has acknowledged that communication and reporting
mechanisms need to be strengthened to ensure that an incident like
this does not occur in the future," Wadia said. However, focusing
on challenges and improvements did not mean China could ignore the
past. "Ignoring or downplaying them is dangerous both for human and
economic health," Wadia said.
The Chinese Ministry of Health confirmed Tuesday that the
country's first human case of H5N1 bird flu occurred in November
2003 which is two years earlier than previously thought.
A letter published by eight Chinese scientists on June 22 in the
New England Journal of Medicine said that the bird flu virus
had been isolated in a 24-year-old man who died in Beijing in 2003.
Initially, the case was thought to be SARS but tests proved
negative.
The Ministry said parallel laboratory tests carried out in
collaboration with the WHO last month confirmed it was a human case
of bird flu. The newly-confirmed case brought China's human
infections of bird flu to 20 with a death toll of 13.
The first human cases of H5N1 bird flu occurred in Hong Kong in
1997. Eighteen cases, including six deaths, were reported at that
time. The current cycle of the virus began in late 2003 with the
first victim in Vietnam in January 2004.
So far globally there have been 235 confirmed human cases of
bird flu. By August 8, 137 of had died according to WHO
figures.
(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2006)