The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World
Health Organization (WHO) have not recommended that the general public
avoid travel to any of the countries affected by H5N1.
The world is presently
in phase 3 of the World Health Organization global alert: a new influenza
virus subtype is causing disease in humans, but is not yet spreading
efficiently and sustainably among humans.
The following information is intended to clarify the threat posed to humans
by avian flu (H5N1).
EAP has been closely monitoring avian flu since February 2003.
Avian influenza, first identified in Italy over 100 years
ago, affects birds. Migratory wildfowl, particularly wild ducks, are
the natural reservoir.
As with many animal diseases, humans can sporadically become infected
under special conditions. The first documented infection of humans
with H5N1 happened in Hong Kong in 1997 but did not appear again until
early
2003. Then, toward the end of 2003, H5N1 suddenly became highly and
widely visible.
Avian influenza (H5N1) was first detected in birds in the WHO European
Region in late July 2005. Since then, additional countries have reported
confirmed cases of H5N1 in animals.
In the current outbreak, laboratory-confirmed human cases have
been reported only in one country in Europe: Turkey.
The European Commission is taking a series of steps to prevent
the spread of bird flu among European bird populations because as long
as the
virus continues to circulate in animals, there will be opportunities
for this virus to infect and adapt to humans.
The discovery of avian flu in birds and in humans in Europe does
not mean that the virus will mutate into a strain of human flu and cause
a global pandemic.
A specific vaccine for humans that is effective in preventing avian
influenza is not yet readily available. As a pandemic vaccine needs to
be a close match to the actual pandemic virus, commercial production
cannot begin prior to the emergence and characterization of the pandemic
virus.
The seasonal flu vaccine does not protect people from the deadly
H5N1 virus, but health experts hope that fewer flu cases would reduce
the chance
of human flu mixing with H5N1 to produce a pandemic strain.
WHO works closely with ministries of health and various public
health organizations, which include CDC, to support surveillance, and
countries
around the world have been developing plans on how to deal with an outbreak
of bird flu and the possibility of it spreading between humans. Unfortunately,
according to WHO, no one is able to accurately predict whether H5N1 will
actually trigger a pandemic--and if it does, we have no idea how long
it might last or how deadly the virus will be. As a global public health
organization,
WHO has a responsibility to alert the international community when it
appears that the world is moving closer to a pandemic. It may be years
before a
pandemic hits the world, and it may ultimately be sparked by a virus
other than H5N1. Because H5N1has become endemic within the poultry populations
in Southeast Asia, and has continued to cross the species barrier and
infect
humans, it is clear that H5N1 is a strain with pandemic potential since
it might adapt into a strain that may be transmissible among humans.
Several actions have been put in place already by the EU to prevent
avian influenza spreading to poultry and other birds in the region and
for mitigation of the consequences of possible outbreaks in poultry.
These include: 1) bans on the import of poultry and poultry products
from affected
countries and certain of their neighbors, 2) a ban on the imports into
the EU of animal products for personal consumption, 3) information campaign
at entry points in the EU from third countries, 4) in some countries,
farmers have been asked to confine more of their poultry indoors as a
precautionary
measure, and 4) intensive surveillance of poultry and wild birds in the
EU.
Sources: WHO Regional Office for Europe, European Commission Health & Consumer
Protection Directorate, and CDC
