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Pledged aid fails Africa in bird flu fight - U.N.
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Pledged aid fails Africa in bird flu fight - U.N.
By Antoine Lawson
LIBREVILLE, March 20 (Reuters) - Massive aid pledged to help poor countries tackle bird flu has not materialised and African countries and the United Nations must plug the shortfall to fund emergency plans, the U.N. bird flu coordinator said on Monday.
David Nabarro, senior U.N. coordinator for avian influenza, was speaking to U.N. and government officials from across Africa at the region's biggest meeting so far to tackle bird flu after it claimed its first human victim on the continent.
Many delegates had been expecting the meeting to concentrate on allocating funds for national and regional response plans.
Donors pledged $1.9 billion at a special conference in China in January to help developing countries strengthen health and veterinary services and boost global surveillance measures to control the deadly H5N1 disease.
"There are insufficient resources available at the present time to put in place emergency plans and prepare a coordinated response," Nabarro told the gathering.
"African countries and the United Nations system must contribute resources to make up for this, in the hope that development partners will react rapidly," Nabarro said.
Nabarro did not specify why the money pledged in Beijing had not materialised, but his comments echoed similar complaints by Indu Bhushan, chairman of the Asian Development Bank's Task Force on Avian Influenza, who told reporters in Bangkok last week that few countries had received money.
"To my knowledge, out of the $1.9 billion pledged, not much actual money has been seen by the countries," Bhushan said.
Nabarro said lack of funding had hampered the implementation of emergency plans in African countries affected by bird flu.
He also said the long wait for results from foreign laboratories, which he said could take 10 to 20 days, had cost valuable time in activating emergency control plans.
Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Egypt -- which said at the weekend that a woman had become the continent's first human victim of the H5N1 -- have all confirmed H5N1 bird flu outbreaks and several countries are testing dead birds, including Gabon.
FIRST DEATH
Egypt, one of four African countries known to have the disease, said at the weekend the virus was found in the blood of a dead woman, the first human casualty on the continent which experts fear is the least prepared to handle a mass outbreak.
The H5N1 avian influenza strain has killed at least 98 people, mainly in Asia and the Middle East, since 2003, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures.
Experts say weak medical, veterinary and laboratory capacity on the world's poorest continent, coupled with the fact many Africans live closely with chickens and other fowl, could leave them vulnerable to contracting the disease from birds.
Major existing killer diseases and epidemics like malaria and HIV/AIDS could also hinder control of outbreaks in Africa -- especially if, as scientists fear, the virus mutates to pass directly from one person to another in a pandemic.
"The threat to human health from bird flu must be taken into account in African countries and financial means committed to strengthening their epidemiological capacity," Mike Ryan, WHO director for Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response, said in a statement before Monday's summit.
Delegates from 46 African countries were expected at the summit, which was due to end on Wednesday.
Pledged aid fails Africa in bird flu fight - U.N.
By Antoine Lawson
LIBREVILLE, March 20 (Reuters) - Massive aid pledged to help poor countries tackle bird flu has not materialised and African countries and the United Nations must plug the shortfall to fund emergency plans, the U.N. bird flu coordinator said on Monday.
David Nabarro, senior U.N. coordinator for avian influenza, was speaking to U.N. and government officials from across Africa at the region's biggest meeting so far to tackle bird flu after it claimed its first human victim on the continent.
Many delegates had been expecting the meeting to concentrate on allocating funds for national and regional response plans.
Donors pledged $1.9 billion at a special conference in China in January to help developing countries strengthen health and veterinary services and boost global surveillance measures to control the deadly H5N1 disease.
"There are insufficient resources available at the present time to put in place emergency plans and prepare a coordinated response," Nabarro told the gathering.
"African countries and the United Nations system must contribute resources to make up for this, in the hope that development partners will react rapidly," Nabarro said.
Nabarro did not specify why the money pledged in Beijing had not materialised, but his comments echoed similar complaints by Indu Bhushan, chairman of the Asian Development Bank's Task Force on Avian Influenza, who told reporters in Bangkok last week that few countries had received money.
"To my knowledge, out of the $1.9 billion pledged, not much actual money has been seen by the countries," Bhushan said.
Nabarro said lack of funding had hampered the implementation of emergency plans in African countries affected by bird flu.
He also said the long wait for results from foreign laboratories, which he said could take 10 to 20 days, had cost valuable time in activating emergency control plans.
Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Egypt -- which said at the weekend that a woman had become the continent's first human victim of the H5N1 -- have all confirmed H5N1 bird flu outbreaks and several countries are testing dead birds, including Gabon.
FIRST DEATH
Egypt, one of four African countries known to have the disease, said at the weekend the virus was found in the blood of a dead woman, the first human casualty on the continent which experts fear is the least prepared to handle a mass outbreak.
The H5N1 avian influenza strain has killed at least 98 people, mainly in Asia and the Middle East, since 2003, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) figures.
Experts say weak medical, veterinary and laboratory capacity on the world's poorest continent, coupled with the fact many Africans live closely with chickens and other fowl, could leave them vulnerable to contracting the disease from birds.
Major existing killer diseases and epidemics like malaria and HIV/AIDS could also hinder control of outbreaks in Africa -- especially if, as scientists fear, the virus mutates to pass directly from one person to another in a pandemic.
"The threat to human health from bird flu must be taken into account in African countries and financial means committed to strengthening their epidemiological capacity," Mike Ryan, WHO director for Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response, said in a statement before Monday's summit.
Delegates from 46 African countries were expected at the summit, which was due to end on Wednesday.
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