EU must prepare now for flu pandemic - commissioner
Europe will almost certainly be hit by an influenza epidemic, possibly a mutation of bird flu which has already killed more than 50 people in Asia, the European Union’s health commissioner said on Friday.
Launching the EU’s European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in the Swedish capital, Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said EU states must make immediate preparations for tackling such an outbreak.
An “influenza pandemic seems inevitable,” he said.
"One possibility is an avian influenza which could mutate into a human virus, or it could be something else,” he said.
Scientists have warned that such a pandemic could kill millions.
The ECDC will coordinate efforts in the 25-member EU to control disease by identifying risks and providing advice.
“Diseases know no borders, and so the fight against diseases should know no borders,” Kyprianou said.
The ECDC will initially focus on influenza, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis. Its budget will rise to around 60 million euros ($75.4 million) by 2010.
Kyprianou said the EU was working with member states and drug companies to boost their ability to respond to a possible pandemic.
He said the EU wanted its members to increase their orders of vaccines now in order to encourage drug companies to expand their capacity so that they could produce enough vaccines in the event of an outbreak.
Kyprianou added that the EU was also proposing a 1 billion euro fund in case of health crisis.
Scientists are particularly worried about the H5N1 strain of bird flu which has killed 37 people in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and four in Cambodia.
Global health officials fear it could mutate into a strain that could rival the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed between 20 and 40 million people.
An outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002 showed how fast a pandemic could spread in an age of extensive international travel when millions of people cross borders every day. SARS killed 800 people worldwide and several Asian economies were hit hard.
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