Europe set to announce task force on bird flu
PARIS (AFP) - Europe will shortly unveil a task force for coordinating the continent's fight against bird flu, a leading European virologist said at a conference on H5N1 avian influenza.
"The task force is likely to be established in September or October," said Albert Osterhaus, a professor at the Netherlands' National Influenza Centre and the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.
Osterhaus told AFP that details of the initiative were still being worked out, but the task force would probably gather scientists, doctors and animal health experts who would assess the latest information about bird flu in order to advise policymakers.
It would operate under aegis of the new European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) based in Stockholm, he said.
The two-day conference on bird flu, which opened at Pasteur Institute in Paris on Thursday, focuses on the risk of a human pandemic from the avian virus.
According to the latest global toll posted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), there have been 228 human cases of infection from H5N1, 130 of them fatal.
PARIS (AFP) - Europe will shortly unveil a task force for coordinating the continent's fight against bird flu, a leading European virologist said at a conference on H5N1 avian influenza.
"The task force is likely to be established in September or October," said Albert Osterhaus, a professor at the Netherlands' National Influenza Centre and the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam.
Osterhaus told AFP that details of the initiative were still being worked out, but the task force would probably gather scientists, doctors and animal health experts who would assess the latest information about bird flu in order to advise policymakers.
It would operate under aegis of the new European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) based in Stockholm, he said.
The two-day conference on bird flu, which opened at Pasteur Institute in Paris on Thursday, focuses on the risk of a human pandemic from the avian virus.
According to the latest global toll posted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), there have been 228 human cases of infection from H5N1, 130 of them fatal.