Reluctance by poor Asian poultry farmers to report bird flu outbreaks is a weak link in the fight to prevent the deadly disease spreading and causing a human pandemic, the World Health Organisation said on Monday.

"We need to realise that there is very little incentive for farmers to report suspected outbreaks," said Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, which covers 37 Asian and Pacific nations.
"In fact, fear that their flocks might be culled without compensation is a pretty strong disincentive to report an outbreak," said Omi at the opening of the WHO Western Pacific annual conference in Noumea, capital of New Caledonia in the South Pacific.

Millions of poultry have been culled in Asia, destroying the livelihood of many poor farmers, since bird flu was first reported in 2003 in southern China and Hong Kong.

WHO advocates mass culling when an outbreak occurs, but some countries do not go along. Indonesia, for instance, has launched a vaccination drive for poultry, but has carried out only limited culling because it lacks the money to compensate farmers.

WHO has warned that it is only a matter of time before the avian flu virus mutates and spreads between humans, becoming a pandemic which could kill tens of millions.

The H5N1 strain of the disease has already killed 64 people in four Asian countries and has spread to Russia and Europe.

The WHO conference of health ministers and officials from the 37 nations hopes to adopt an Asia-Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases, to fight not only avian flu but other existing and yet to emerge diseases. The plan aims to strengthen reporting of outbreaks, ensure rapid responses and increase international co-operation.
"We must keep in mind that we are likely to encounter in the coming years many other new emerging diseases," said Omi.
Omi said Asian governments were trying their best to combat avian flu, but there was insufficient capacity for proper surveillance in rural villages, and a lack of education was leaving farmers and market operators at risk.

Recalling his personal experiences in Cambodia after the country reported its first human case of avian flu in 2004, Omi said he followed a motorbike with live chickens tied across its back wheel to a small rural market, where he watched a woman pull intestines from the animals with her bare hands.

"If the birds she was handling had been infected with avian influenza virus, I'm sure she would have picked up the infection," he said.

"She was a pleasant, hard-working woman. I asked if she knew anything about the recent outbreaks of avian influenza in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam. She said, 'no'," Omi said.

"My brief encounter in Cambodia illustrates the hard realities not only in Cambodia but throughout Asia and beyond. Recent outbreaks in Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Russia have made it clear that avian influenza is not limited to Asia."

Most of the people killed in Asia since 2003 caught the virus from infected birds. Health experts say the greatest worry is that the highly pathogenic strain of the disease known as H5N1 could mutate and become transmissible between people.

WHO has warned that countries far from heavily hit Southeast Asian states were not safe because the disease was spreading through migratory wildfowl, with the biggest fear that it would spread west into Europe.

"We must not underestimate the threat the world now faces from emerging diseases such as pandemic influenza," WHO's global director general, Dr Lee Jong-wook, told the conference.

"The only condition missing is the emergence of a virus that is capable of rapid transmission among humans," he said.

Lee said an avian flu pandemic would have massive social, economic and political consequences, recalling that the flu pandemics of the 1950s and 1960s killed five million people, and they were only mild pandemics, while the SARS outbreak killed fewer than 1,000 people.

U.S. President George W. Bush unveiled a plan at the United Nations last Wednesday under which countries and international agencies would pool resources and expertise to fight bird flu.

PHOTO CAPTION

Suffering from suspected cases of bird flu, 6-year-old Mutiara Gayatri, foreground, and 3-year-old Wendy Lisa, background lie in their hospital beds covered with blankets Monday, Sept. 19, 2005 in Jakarta, Indonesia. (AP)