African governments are facing a tough task to translate their
promises into consolidated actions in the fight against avian
influenza, the lethal disease that has spread into eight countries
in the cash- strapped continent within four months.
Idrissa Sow, Avian Influenza official of the World Health
Organization African regional office, told Xinhua in an exclusive
interview in Cape Town on Thursday on the sidelines of the World
Economic Forum African summit.
The WHO official said that following the warning of possible
bird flu outbreak in the continent late last year, African
countries had held a series of regional meetings to work out a
cooperation system in order to tackle the spreading of H5N1 virus
and finally had the Libreville Declaration approved by 46 African
countries.
"The continent are struggling to translate those words on paper
into real actions to reverse the rolling out of virus which was
first found in Nigeria in February this year and now invaded seven
other nations including Egypt, Cameroon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote
d'Ivoire, Sudan and Djibouti," said the official.
The expanding of flu virus has renewed fears that any outbreak
in any African country would be devastating just imaging the
poverty-hit continent's insufficient surveillance, lack of disease
control capacity and the close proximity between animals and
humans.
"African governments have started with establishing labs
handling with H5 virus in Nigeria, Kenya, Senegal, Cameroon and the
like, " said Sow, "so far we have one lab in South Africa that can
identify H5N1 virus and several low-level labs assigned to do
primary analysis."
According to the official, teams of researchers have been sent
out and a surveillance system has been set up throughout the
continent to track wild birds deaths and collect information for
authorities.
Training of technicians and educating of local communities are
also undergone in most African countries to raise awareness,
mobilize community preparations and avoid unnecessary panic.
The infected countries have been taking measures such as poultry
mass slaughtering, farm isolation and export and import bans to
have the disease under control.
However, Sow said the poor continent still need to source
financial and technology supports from the rest of the world to
back the tough fight against bird flu because there is no way for
an African country, which has a health budget below US$10 per
person a year, to have a perfect plan or provide its population
with antiviral drugs.
"WHO and some African countries do have aids from major donors
flowing in but it is true the bulk of aid money promised by the
developed world last year have not arrived yet," said Sow.
"No country in the world is completely prepared and no country
is risk-free," said Sow, "and also no country will feel safe if the
rest of the world are suffering from such a pandemic."
Each country in our earth village, whether infected by the virus
or not, should take responsibilities and put resources together to
drive away the deadly virus that had infected 48 countries and
claimed over 100 lives in Asia and Africa, said Sow.
(Xinhua News Agency June 2, 2006)
