Two United Nations agencies have warned that bird flu is "a
crisis of global importance", that will not be eradicated in the
near future.
A joint statement from the Food and Agriculture Organization and
the World Organization for Animal Health says the virus represents
"a permanent threat" to human and animal health.
The statement comes as Thai officials confirmed that a woman who
was feared to have contracted bird flu from her daughter had
actually come into contact with dead chickens.
The two UN agencies have released a new set of guidelines on
combating and preventing outbreaks of bird flu following recent
outbreaks in Cambodia, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The new guidelines stress the importance of surveillance and
early detection, something which the agencies say governments in
East Asia are not doing well enough.
(CRI September 28, 2004)