I found a news story this evening which says FAO is going to take a leading role in fighting H5N1 and will become a global clearinghouse in the fight against the virus.
‘’FAO takes on greater role in bird flu battle
March 08 2006 at 12:36AM
By Robin Pomeroy
Rome - 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 on Tuesday.
The United States and the European Union have backed the formation of a what a senior United States 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.’‘
Does this sound like even their colleagues at FAO have decided that WHO is no longer providing sufficiently timely and effective information and coordination?
Prhaps some of you epidemiology/virology types would care to comment
I notice also that this effort has both financial and participation backing by the US and EU.
Hi Eccles, I think they are setting it up from the standpoint of bird surveillance (other animals, too). Of course, your point is well taken. Where the bird outbreaks are, so goes the human outbreaks.
“EARLY WARNING SYSTEM”
“The FAO intends to set up an “early warning system”, to track the spread of the virus and estimate where the next outbreaks may occur, said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal production and health at the FAO.
“It would undertake ‘rumour tracking’ and would be similar to what the World Health Organisation has to observe and monitor developments of epidemics 24 hours-a-day,” Jutzi told Reuters.
Ron DeHaven, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s top official on bird flu, who attended the meeting, said the efforts to tackle bird flu in animals had, to date, mostly been done bilaterally and something that had to change.”
Bumped up to get some more comments
Shwartz?
The “Need a WHO 2 ?” comment a while ago, comes to mind…
If FAO wants to get more active, good.
http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseases-cards/special_avian.html
Their recent Pet piece http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseases-cards/avian_cats.html
(Don’t watch their AI slideshow- unless you like seeing the insides and outsides of sick chickens)
Another from FAO: “Highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza outbreaks in poultry and in humans: Food safety implications
1. Conventional cooking (temperatures at or above 70°C in all parts of a food item) will inactivate the H5N1 virus. Properly cooked poultry meat is therefore safe to consume.
2. The H5N1 virus, if present in poultry meat, is not killed by refrigeration or freezing.
3. Home slaughtering and preparation of sick or dead poultry for food is hazardous: this practice must be stopped.
4. Eggs can contain H5N1 virus both on the outside (shell) and the inside (whites and yolk). Eggs from areas with H5N1 outbreaks in poultry should not be consumed raw or partially cooked (runny yolk); uncooked eggs should not be used in foods that will not be cooked, baked or heat-treated in other ways.
5. There is no epidemiological evidence to indicate that people have been infected with the H5N1 virus following consumption of properly cooked poultry or eggs.
6. The greatest risk of exposure to the virus is through the handling and slaughter of live infected poultry. Good hygiene practices are essential during slaughter and post- slaughter handling to prevent exposure via raw poultry meat or cross contamination from poultry to other foods, food preparation surfaces or equipment”
Don’t put your hopes up too much.
What you are seeing is people now slicing the cake - the $2 billion pledged.
Setting up any new agency/headquarter/operation centre requires a period of anything from 9 months to 2 years to get over teething problems.
The sudden keenness of EU and US despite the fact that this problem has been simmering for years would at least be partially caused by the agricultural lobbies in these countries. They are scared “£$%&^%$ about any decisions/recommendations that include culling or will affect the saleable status of their products. They would want to have as much control of such decisions as possible.
Sorry for being so cynical. The agricultural sectors in these 2 blocs have a stranglehold over politics, policies, international trade re WTO, etc for too long for them to suddenly become good samaritans.
anon_22 – at 16:14 Does not sound cynical to meat all. WHO, WTO, World Bank(Paul Wolf.)There is no way politics can be kept out but there will always be time later to hold hearings and launch an investigation-only to reveal those of us that are left did not connect the dots.
me at-Check TSN, PPC, SAFM, etc… Is there a spin doctor in the house?
What people dont know about FAO: it wants to use the bird flu epidemic to speed up the industrialisation of poultery farming, which will endure the epidemic and other like it continue:
‘’Vietnam’s poultry sector has been ravaged by bird flu, but a lull in infections has left producers divided on whether to slow down or forge ahead and revolutionise the industry.
Some experts and corporate survivors of the disease that tore through backyard chicken farms here say now is the time to invest in modern integrated operations that promise more safety for workers and consumers.’ …
‘A shift from family chicken coups to cutting edge factory farms would make both public health and business sense, said Tony Forman, avian influenza technical adviser for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Vietnam.
“Groups prepared to invest in biosecure facilities in breeding, animal feed, slaughter houses and food processing may achieve a high level of return on their investment,” he told AFP.’ http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060312/wl_asia_afp/healthfluvietnampoultry
Now read the GRAIN articlw: http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=194
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