Bird flu poses no immediate threat to Europe, leading virologist claim
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《英国医生杂志》
Albert Osterhaus, the chairman of the European scientific working group on influenza, said this week that isolated outbreaks of avian influenza in western Europe did not "substantially increase the risk of a flu pandemic."
Professor Albert Osterhaus said in 2003, "My suggestion to policy makers is: why don't you stockpile antivirals?'
Credit: GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAERT/AP
It was important not to confuse the threat posed by highly pathogenic avian flu with that of a human flu pandemic. The threat at the moment was to animal welfare and the economy, rather than to public health.
Professor Osterhaus, a professor of virology at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre, said, "The pandemic risks are directly proportional to the numbers of people who become infected." South East Asia was most at risk because avian flu was "more or less endemic" there.
"I think we can protect people well enough preventatively against the isolated outbreaks of avian flu in western Europe. We know how to protect the people involved in the culling and slaughtering of birds, especially after the Dutch outbreak of 2003 which caused the death of a vet" ( BMJ 2003;326: 952).
Professor Osterhaus, who helped in 2003 to identify the virus for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), told the BMJ two years ago that no country in the world "is sufficiently prepared if we get a new pandemic outbreak of flu. My suggestion to policy makers is: why don't you stockpile antivirals?"
He told the BMJ this week: "I am completely in favour of taking all the precautionary measures for a pandemic but I think the fact that there is so much attention now is wrong because it is really a threat to animal welfare and an economic, not so much a public health, problem."
Meanwhile his European scientific working group on influenza has called for a European task force that would monitor birds, stockpile oseltamivir, coordinate scientific research, increase human flu vaccination levels, and form a public-private partnership for testing prototype vaccines against avian influenza.
Testing the prototype vaccines for safety and efficacy could and should happen tomorrow, he believes. (See News Extra on bmj.com.)(Tony Sheldon)
Professor Albert Osterhaus said in 2003, "My suggestion to policy makers is: why don't you stockpile antivirals?'
Credit: GEERT VANDEN WIJNGAERT/AP
It was important not to confuse the threat posed by highly pathogenic avian flu with that of a human flu pandemic. The threat at the moment was to animal welfare and the economy, rather than to public health.
Professor Osterhaus, a professor of virology at Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre, said, "The pandemic risks are directly proportional to the numbers of people who become infected." South East Asia was most at risk because avian flu was "more or less endemic" there.
"I think we can protect people well enough preventatively against the isolated outbreaks of avian flu in western Europe. We know how to protect the people involved in the culling and slaughtering of birds, especially after the Dutch outbreak of 2003 which caused the death of a vet" ( BMJ 2003;326: 952).
Professor Osterhaus, who helped in 2003 to identify the virus for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), told the BMJ two years ago that no country in the world "is sufficiently prepared if we get a new pandemic outbreak of flu. My suggestion to policy makers is: why don't you stockpile antivirals?"
He told the BMJ this week: "I am completely in favour of taking all the precautionary measures for a pandemic but I think the fact that there is so much attention now is wrong because it is really a threat to animal welfare and an economic, not so much a public health, problem."
Meanwhile his European scientific working group on influenza has called for a European task force that would monitor birds, stockpile oseltamivir, coordinate scientific research, increase human flu vaccination levels, and form a public-private partnership for testing prototype vaccines against avian influenza.
Testing the prototype vaccines for safety and efficacy could and should happen tomorrow, he believes. (See News Extra on bmj.com.)(Tony Sheldon)