FAO to boost role
Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - Updated 10:12 (CET)
Reuters
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=217077
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is to play a greater role in fighting bird flu, becoming a "global clearing house" for efforts to stem the spread of the virus, it said yesterday.
The United States and the European Union have backed the formation of a what a senior US official called an "emergency operations centre" at the FAO's Rome headquarters. The initiative was agreed at a meeting at the FAO requested by the US and EU.
Funding for the centre will come from a pot of almost $2 billion pledged by wealthy nations at an international conference in Beijing in January. The US would provide experts to help run the centre and expects other nations to follow suit. The move follows the spread of H5N1 avian flu into at least 15 new nations over the past month, with cases detected in birds in several countries across Europe and also in flocks in Egypt and West Africa.
The virus, which re-emerged in Asia in late 2003, can wipe out poultry flocks in the space of 48 hours. It can also infect people who come into close contact with sick poultry and has claimed 95 human lives.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - Updated 10:12 (CET)
Reuters
http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=217077
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is to play a greater role in fighting bird flu, becoming a "global clearing house" for efforts to stem the spread of the virus, it said yesterday.
The United States and the European Union have backed the formation of a what a senior US official called an "emergency operations centre" at the FAO's Rome headquarters. The initiative was agreed at a meeting at the FAO requested by the US and EU.
Funding for the centre will come from a pot of almost $2 billion pledged by wealthy nations at an international conference in Beijing in January. The US would provide experts to help run the centre and expects other nations to follow suit. The move follows the spread of H5N1 avian flu into at least 15 new nations over the past month, with cases detected in birds in several countries across Europe and also in flocks in Egypt and West Africa.
The virus, which re-emerged in Asia in late 2003, can wipe out poultry flocks in the space of 48 hours. It can also infect people who come into close contact with sick poultry and has claimed 95 human lives.