AlaskaDenise
In Memoriam
http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=13426
10-Dec-06</EM>
THE World Health Organization, which last month blasted China for not being transparent about its bird flu outbreak, said on Friday that it was satisfied with Beijing's collaboration in fighting the disease.
``China is a very important partner in the fight against avian influenza,'' David Heymann, interim WHO director for communicable diseases, told a news conference in Beijing.
``A Chinese virus has been used in this network (the WHO collaborating network) to develop what is called the prototype vaccine for pandemic influenza,'' he said. ``So China's contribution is significant.''
Heymann said he had participated during the week in a ``routine mission'' to China on bird flu that had involved the WHO, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.
At the request of the Chinese ministers for health and agriculture, foreign and Chinese experts discussed ``how China could contribute even more both by providing viruses and also by providing technical and scientific expertise to the world,'' Heymann said.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, which can be lethal to humans, reappeared in 2003 in Southeast Asia and in China.
A dispute between China and the authors of a paper on bird flu centres on the name of the strain identified, not its existence, scientists said on Friday.
China had rejected findings in a paper published in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a vaccine-resistant strain of H5N1 bird flu the paper's authors called the ``Fujian-like virus'' was circulating in the country.Agencies
.
10-Dec-06</EM>
THE World Health Organization, which last month blasted China for not being transparent about its bird flu outbreak, said on Friday that it was satisfied with Beijing's collaboration in fighting the disease.
``China is a very important partner in the fight against avian influenza,'' David Heymann, interim WHO director for communicable diseases, told a news conference in Beijing.
``A Chinese virus has been used in this network (the WHO collaborating network) to develop what is called the prototype vaccine for pandemic influenza,'' he said. ``So China's contribution is significant.''
Heymann said he had participated during the week in a ``routine mission'' to China on bird flu that had involved the WHO, the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.
At the request of the Chinese ministers for health and agriculture, foreign and Chinese experts discussed ``how China could contribute even more both by providing viruses and also by providing technical and scientific expertise to the world,'' Heymann said.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, which can be lethal to humans, reappeared in 2003 in Southeast Asia and in China.
A dispute between China and the authors of a paper on bird flu centres on the name of the strain identified, not its existence, scientists said on Friday.
China had rejected findings in a paper published in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that a vaccine-resistant strain of H5N1 bird flu the paper's authors called the ``Fujian-like virus'' was circulating in the country.Agencies
.