sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=640 align=center border=0>British expert: Taiwan prepared to fight flu
2007/3/16
TAIPEI, CNA
Taiwan has been rated as well-prepared to fight a potential flu pandemic that may be caused by the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, National Science Council Chairman Chen Chien-jen said yesterday.
Chen, an epidemiologist-turned-technocrat who concurrently serves as convener of a supraministerial flu prevention task force, made the remarks after presiding over a review meeting a day earlier on various precautionary measures.
According to Chen, the Cabinet-level Department of Health (DOH) invited Dr. Richard Coker, a noted British bird flu expert who is also an adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO), to Taipei earlier this month to evaluate Taiwan's flu prevention mechanism and strategies.
"We get a score of 70 points, higher than the median score of 57 among the 28 countries around the world that Coker has reviewed and assessed," Chen said.
One of the assorted measures that Taiwan has adopted to prevent an invasion of bird flu virus is setting up nets around all pig and poultry farms islandwide to prevent wild birds from passing the flu virus to hogs and poultry, Chen said, adding that nets will have been set up at nearly 85 percent of all farms by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Chen said feces samples collected from throngs of great cormorants converging on the outlying island, ahead of their return to the north after having wintered in Taiwan, were found not to contain the H5N1 virus, indicating that Taiwan remains an H5N1-free area.
In terms of an evaluation by local health authorities of Taiwan's preparedness against a possible flu pandemic based on WHO-set criteria, Taiwan gets a score of 80 to 85 points, Chen said, adding that Taiwan needs to further study how many volunteers and retirees can be recruited in the event of a flu pandemic and whether government funds will be needed in post-pandemic rehabilitation.
Shih Wen yi, deputy director of the DOH's Center for Disease Control, said a large-scale flu pandemic control drill will be held in the middle of this year, with the participation of public health agencies, private corporations and farming households, to test various response measures and strategies.
To date, the virulent H5N1 remains primarily a bird disease with only limited bird-to-human transmission. But medical experts do not rule out the possibility of the virus mutating into a new strain that could possibly lead to a pandemic among humans.
Against this backdrop, the government has stockpiled 2.3 million doses of Tamiflu capsules and powder -- an amount sufficient for 10 percent of Taiwan's population, a level suggested by the WHO -- in case a H5N1-triggered flu pandemic breaks out.
Moreover, the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) has been carrying out a bird flu vaccine development project since August 2005 and has collected H5N1 culture samples from patients in Vietnam for the development of flu vaccine. By the end of 2006, NHRI researchers had completed the preparation of the H5N1 vaccine and found, in experiments on small animals, that the NHRI-developed H5N1 vaccine can effectively induce protective antibodies. According to the NHRI's bird flu vaccine research program, the top goal for 2007 is filing for approval for clinical tests on humans in the last quarter of the year and launching clinical tests on humans in 2008.
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http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/print/104752.htm
2007/3/16
TAIPEI, CNA
Taiwan has been rated as well-prepared to fight a potential flu pandemic that may be caused by the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus, National Science Council Chairman Chen Chien-jen said yesterday.
Chen, an epidemiologist-turned-technocrat who concurrently serves as convener of a supraministerial flu prevention task force, made the remarks after presiding over a review meeting a day earlier on various precautionary measures.
According to Chen, the Cabinet-level Department of Health (DOH) invited Dr. Richard Coker, a noted British bird flu expert who is also an adviser to the World Health Organization (WHO), to Taipei earlier this month to evaluate Taiwan's flu prevention mechanism and strategies.
"We get a score of 70 points, higher than the median score of 57 among the 28 countries around the world that Coker has reviewed and assessed," Chen said.
One of the assorted measures that Taiwan has adopted to prevent an invasion of bird flu virus is setting up nets around all pig and poultry farms islandwide to prevent wild birds from passing the flu virus to hogs and poultry, Chen said, adding that nets will have been set up at nearly 85 percent of all farms by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Chen said feces samples collected from throngs of great cormorants converging on the outlying island, ahead of their return to the north after having wintered in Taiwan, were found not to contain the H5N1 virus, indicating that Taiwan remains an H5N1-free area.
In terms of an evaluation by local health authorities of Taiwan's preparedness against a possible flu pandemic based on WHO-set criteria, Taiwan gets a score of 80 to 85 points, Chen said, adding that Taiwan needs to further study how many volunteers and retirees can be recruited in the event of a flu pandemic and whether government funds will be needed in post-pandemic rehabilitation.
Shih Wen yi, deputy director of the DOH's Center for Disease Control, said a large-scale flu pandemic control drill will be held in the middle of this year, with the participation of public health agencies, private corporations and farming households, to test various response measures and strategies.
To date, the virulent H5N1 remains primarily a bird disease with only limited bird-to-human transmission. But medical experts do not rule out the possibility of the virus mutating into a new strain that could possibly lead to a pandemic among humans.
Against this backdrop, the government has stockpiled 2.3 million doses of Tamiflu capsules and powder -- an amount sufficient for 10 percent of Taiwan's population, a level suggested by the WHO -- in case a H5N1-triggered flu pandemic breaks out.
Moreover, the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) has been carrying out a bird flu vaccine development project since August 2005 and has collected H5N1 culture samples from patients in Vietnam for the development of flu vaccine. By the end of 2006, NHRI researchers had completed the preparation of the H5N1 vaccine and found, in experiments on small animals, that the NHRI-developed H5N1 vaccine can effectively induce protective antibodies. According to the NHRI's bird flu vaccine research program, the top goal for 2007 is filing for approval for clinical tests on humans in the last quarter of the year and launching clinical tests on humans in 2008.
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<TBODY></TBODY></TABLE>
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/print/104752.htm