BEIJING (Reuters):
WEALTHY NATIONS promised almost US$2 billion yesterday to combat the spread of bird flu, with the urgency of the threat underlined by new reports of human deaths in China and Turkey and panic spreading to Iraq.
The funding promised at the end of an international conference in Beijing was well in excess of an initial target set by the World Bank to raise at least US$1.2 billion.
Conference host China said a 35-year-old woman in the southwest of the country had died of bird flu. The woman, a poultry slaughterer, would be China's sixth human death from the virus if confirmed by the World Health Organisation.
Turkey reported an 11-year-old girl had died of suspected bird flu, while neighbouring Iraq tested for the virus a teenage girl who died on Tuesday.
The World Bank has estimated that a pandemic lasting a year could cost the global economy up to $800 billion. Across the globe, millions could die if the H5N1 avian flu virus mutates just enough to pass easily among people.
"This is not charity. This is not just solidarity. This is self-defence," EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told a news conference in Beijing.
Of the $1.9 billion pledged, about $900 million would be in the form of loans, and the rest in grants, he added.
The H5N1 virus has killed at least 79 people in six countries since late 2003, according to the most recent figures from the WHO. The victims normally contract the virus through close contact with infected birds.
Turkey said its latest suspected victim, Sevgi Acar, died on the way to a hospital in the eastern city of Erzurum. Turkey has already reported the deaths of four children as the virus spread from East Asia to the gates of Europe and the Middle East.
There were fears that bird flu has reached Iraq after a 14-year-old girl died of a fever in the Kurdish region close to the Turkish and Iranian borders.
Health officials said Tijan Abdel-Qader, who died on Tuesday after a two-week illness, lived close to a lake that is a haven for migratory birds flying south from Turkey.
A senior official at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said he was looking into rumours of bird deaths in northern Syria.
FUNDING PLEDGES
The virus is endemic in poultry in large parts of Asia, often hitting countries which are poorly equipped to detect and eradicate it. Money pledged at the conference in Beijing is intended to fill in some of the gaps.
The United States pledged about $334 million, saying the money would be mainly in the form of grants and technical assistance. The total EU pledge is nearly $250 million.
"The amount asked for is small compared to the cost of a pandemic we are not ready for," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the conference in a video address.
World Bank Vice President Jim Adams said there was a recognition that if dealt with promptly, bird flu could be managed. He said more than half the $1.9 billion was new commitments, not mentioned in previous aid programmes.
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin urged Europe to set up a rapid reaction group to tackle bird flu.
"I propose that Europe equips itself with a real bird flu intervention force: experts always available, ready to go without delay to new focal points," he said in a speech in Berlin.
PLEDGES WELCOMED
Analysts said the Beijing conference had been very useful but stressed the need to turn pledges into action.
"If we are lucky and the pandemic doesn't hit us for the next six months, I think the world would be reasonably well prepared to cope," said Michael Richardson, senior research fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
"Once this money is spent, the question is how quickly can the necessary people be trained -- the health workers, the veterinarians, the animal health people on the ground -- how quickly the clinics and the facilities can be put in place."
(Additional reporting by Mia Shanley in Singapore and Twana Osman in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, Mustafa Yukselbaba in Ankara, Phil Stewart in Rome and Paul Carrel in Paris)
2006-01-18 18:04:39 GMT (Reuters)
