Bird flu could kill 214,000 Aussies

[Sally Furniss]

Bird flu could kill 214,000 Aussies

February 16, 2006 - 6:04AM

A serious worldwide outbreak of avian flu could kill up to 214,000 Australians, according to new projections by experts.
The research shows the world death toll from a disastrous bird flu pandemic could be as high as 142 million, or 2.2 per cent of the earth's population, Fairfax newspapers report.
The estimates by Professor Warwick McKibbin, one of the world's leading economic modellers and a member of the Reserve Bank board, and Dr Alexandra Sidorenko, a health expert at Australian National University, will be presented at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.
The H5N1 bird flu strain is passed from birds to humans but is not yet able to be passed from human to human, which experts fear could occur if the virus mutates.
Worst case scenario models showed south-east Asian countries would suffer the highest death rates - about five per cent of their populations - and the world economy would shrink by 12.6 per cent, Fairfax reported.
© 2006 AAP

 

[Sally Furniss]

Bird flu threatens misery for millions

Bird flu threatens misery for millions

Bird flu threatens misery for millions

By Peter Hartcher and John Garnaut
February 16, 2006

Related coverage
Europe warned migratory flights will bring greater bird flu risk

AVIAN flu could kill up to 214,000 Australians in a serious global outbreak, twice the number killed in all wars in the country's history, according to a new projection by Australian experts.
The world death toll could be as high as 142 million or 2.2 per cent of humanity, with one-eighth of the world economy - $US4.4 trillion ($6 trillion) in annual production - evaporating.
The estimate by Professor Warwick McKibbin, one of the world's leading economic modellers and a member of the Reserve Bank board, and Dr Alexandra Sidorenko, a health expert at the Australian National University, will be presented at the Lowy Institute in Sydney today.
These are their worst-case estimates but, as the Treasurer, Peter Costello, told Parliament yesterday, "we must prepare on a worst-possible-case basis".
He said preparations in Australia were "well-advanced ... for an event we hope never occurs".
Avian flu continues to spread. Last week it was confirmed to have arrived in Africa and western Europe, and has so far infected more than 140 people and killed at least 70.
The H5N1 virus is passed from birds to humans but has not crossed the threshold that health experts most fear - contagion from human to human. But if it were to mutate and cross this barrier, a global pandemic would result, say health experts.
South-East Asian countries would suffer the highest death rates - about 5 per cent of their populations - and China and India the largest death tolls, says the McKibbin-Sidorenko paper. The Lowy Institute study says human suffering would be amplified by deep recessions in every major economy and "capital flight" out of developing countries to rich ones.
The world economy would shrink by 12.6 per cent, it says.
All 10 flu pandemics recorded in the past three centuries have emanated from Russia, China or elsewhere in Asia, where many humans live closely with ducks.
Pandemics - or epidemics that involve all people - have broken out every 10 to 40 years since the late 19th century, the last occurring in 1968.
"It is 37 years since the last pandemic and many argue that another pandemic is overdue," says the report. It says the world must invest hugely to prevent or limit such an outbreak; particularly in Asia, where health systems are less developed. Australia is considered a world leader in preparing for an outbreak.
The authors also modelled less virulent outbreaks, assuming death rates as severe as some previous pandemics but less than the Spanish flu outbreak. Under the "mild" scenario, 2100 Australians would die and 1.4 million would perish worldwide.
A separate Treasury study, also to be released today, says a bird flu outbreak that kills 40,000 Australians would cause a recession "about half the size of the Great Depression". However, earlier claims about "the dire economic effects" of bird flu had been overstated.
Authors Steven Kennedy, Jim Thomson and Petar Vujanovic say financial costs would be serious in the short term, particularly in service industries, such as tourism and hospitality, which required face-to-face contact.
But in the long run, those who survived would benefit from the assets of those who perished.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/bird-flu-threatens-misery-for-millions/2006/02/15/1139890807089.html

 

[Cautel]

NZ: Bird-flu impact on economy in billions

NZ: Bird-flu impact on economy in billions

Bird-flu impact on economy in billions

18 February 2006

By ANNA CLARIDGE
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3576028a10,00.html


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]New Zealand would take the second biggest hit of any global economy if a mild bird flu pandemic hit, an Australian study has found.[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]A mild pandemic would shave $1.4 billion off the country's GDP gross domestic product (GDP), while an ultra-pandemic, similar to the 1918 Spanish Flu, would wipe more than $17b from the economy. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]The Lowry Institute study, a comprehensive look at 20 economic regions including Europe, Japan and the United States, found that after the Philippines, New Zealand would suffer greatest because of the economic reliance on tourism and a healthy workforce. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Researchers have been assessing the impact of a pandemic in the face of a bird flu out-break which has swept through Asia, Europe and now Africa. [/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]To date, H5N1 has killed at least 91 people in Asia and the Middle East and forced the culling of millions of birds in Asia and Turkey since 2003. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]The virus remains a bird disease, but scientists fear it may mutate into a form which could easily pass between humans, and could reach a pandemic. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]"The extent of potential human and economic losses across the scenarios considered suggests that large investment of resources should be dedicated to preventing an outbreak," the study said. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Globally, the study found a mild pandemic would see 1.4m people die and a global economic loss of $300b (0.8 per cent of global GDP). [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]In an "ultra" outbreak, similar to the Spa[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]nish flu, more than 142m people would be killed and some economies, particularly in the developing world, would shrink by 50 per cent. The global economic cost would be $4.4 trillion. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]"If an influenza pandemic emerges, this report suggests the economic consequences are potentially very large and disparate across countries. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]"As in most crises, developing countries are far more negatively affected than the large economies of North America and Europe," the study said. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]The New Zealand Government's own estimate has put the potential economic loss at between $15b and $30b in the first year and up to $40b over four years. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Treasury is already co-ordinating work looking at measures to mitigate the economic shock from a pandemic and encourage a rapid rebound. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]Bank of New Zealand chief economist Tony Alexander said yesterday the study result was not surprising. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]"A study came out a few weeks ago saying that we would be one of the best off countries in terms of deaths but I've been saying for a long time that we would be one of the hardest hit economically. [/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif]"It makes sense. Tourism is our biggest export earner and that would cease to exist ... people's debt levels are high and they don't have alternative sources of income so the economy would suffer greatly." [/FONT]

 

[Sally Furniss]

Australia: Flu vaccine maker may get govt indemnity

Australia: Flu vaccine maker may get govt indemnity

Flu vaccine maker may get govt indemnity

February 20, 2006 - 11:59AM




The federal government has signalled vaccine company CSL will be protected from legal action if new bird flu treatments have damaging side-effects.
As Health Minister Tony Abbott handed more money to researchers to protect Australia from the flu threat, he promised the government would do everything possible to help CSL fast-track production of a human vaccine.
Melbourne-based drug maker CSL has predicted its vaccine against the deadly bird flu virus could be available in Australia within six weeks of a pandemic.
The vaccine is the only one of its type being developed in the southern hemisphere and could prove a powerful weapon in the fight against bird flu, which has so far killed nearly 100 people in Asia and the Middle East.
But CSL says if it has to fast-track the vaccine, it wants a government guarantee protecting the company from lawsuits in case of any adverse reactions.
Mr Abbott said the government had already provided CSL with indemnities for its current range of bird flu research programs and was willing to go further.
"We will want to see all the results of the current testing program before we take this further," he said.
"But obviously we want to protect the Australian population as fully as we can and if that involves further production, further testing and further indemnifying, well we're certainly going to look at all of that."
Professor Ian Gust from Australia's Influenza Pandemic Planning Committee said the same situation applied overseas.
"When a manufacturer's called on to produce, at short notice, very large quantities of vaccine, which haven't been tested in large numbers of people beforehand, and to produce that for public health purposes, I think it's reasonable that they should be indemnified against any untoward complications that might occur," Prof Gust told ABC radio.
Also, Mr Abbott committed an extra $6.5 million to research projects that aim to prevent, detect or control an outbreak of bird flu in Australia.
Mr Abbott said 33 research projects would share the funding, including the universities of Sydney, NSW, Queensland and Melbourne.
The Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research will also receive $118,000 to develop new tests to monitor the development and transmission of drug-resistant influenza.
Researchers at the institute are working on creating a portable diagnostic test that can identify the presence of bird flu in a person within two hours.
Mr Abbott said while he did not believe an avian flu pandemic was imminent in Australia, the research grants would help better prepare the nation.
It comes as India carries out a massive cull of poultry amid fears of an outbreak of bird flu in the remote Maharashtra district.
Indian health officials culled five million birds in the Nandurbar district of Maharashtra at the weekend.
Mr Abbott said the more avian influenza could be controlled in birds, the less likely the chance of a world-wide human pandemic.
"But obviously the more widely it spreads, particularly in Africa, the more difficult it's going to be to try to ensure that we keep it under the sort of control that you'd want," he said.
? 2006 AAP
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National...-govt-indemnity/2006/02/20/1140283982357.html

 

[Mellie]

Uni to develop bird flu simulation software

Uni to develop bird flu simulation software

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1575756.htm




Uni to develop bird flu simulation software

Researchers at the University of Western Australia (UWA) have been given a Commonwealth grant of almost $100,000 to develop a software simulation of an outbreak of bird flu in Australia.


The program will look at a number of scenarios of how the disease would spread and how best to control it, using several different methods including travel restrictions, workplace and school closures and the effect of vaccinations and anti-viral drugs.


Professor George Milne from UWA says the first version of the software should be completed in six months.


"One of the uses of it once we've built it will be to look at how various containment strategies can affect the spread and hopefully slow down the rate of spread," he said.


"[Strategies] such as social distancing which is when we reduce the chances of susceptible and infectious people mixing, also looking at the effects of quarantine, the effects of vaccination and the effects of using anti-virals".

 

[DB]

Re: Bird flu could kill 214,000 Aussies

A complete waste of $100,000.

Why they didn't spend this money on masks, medicines and other ESSENTIAL equipment is beyond me.

Complete waste.