

Podcast - Full Program Podcast - Individual Items
Not sure what this is? Find out more

The World TodayThe World Today
Correspondents ReportCorrespondents Report

More Current Affairs:



WHO says bird flu could kill 100 million


PM - Tuesday, 30 November , 2004  18:39:18

Reporter: Peter Lloyd

MARK COLVIN: The World Health Organisation has issued a dire prediction that the bird flu virus could kill up to 100 million people around the world.

It's a significant rise in the agency's estimates of the number of deaths that could result if bird flu were to mutate into an uncontrollable form of human influenza.

Yet there are others who believe the WHO's numbers are still a staggering underestimate.

South East Asia Correspondent Peter Lloyd reports.

PETER LLOYD: So far, bird flu has killed more people in Thailand and Vietnam than anywhere else. There have been 44 confirmed cases of the H5 N1 strain in both countries. Of that number, 32 patients have died. That's a staggering mortality rate of 72.7 per cent. Compare that to SARS, which had a mortality rate of about 15 per cent.

The WHO's Peter Cordingley is sounding the alarm.

PETER CORDINGLEY: WHO's thinking is that if this pandemic does take place, there will be at least two million to seven million dead people. That's a cautious number that we get from a reliable American institution.

There are others who are no less reliable who look at world populations. They look at globalisation, they look at the pathogenicity of this virus, and they have estimated up to 100 million. That's not a number we're using, but it's a number that's in that back of our minds.

PETER LLOYD: Is it the high mortality rate that leads to these estimates?

PETER CORDINGLEY: Yes. This virus quite clearly, as far as we know at this stage, kills most people that it infects.

PETER LLOYD: But to some extent isn't the estimate a little alarmist when you consider that even when human to human transmission is likely to have occurred even here in Thailand, there was no further transmission?

PETER CORDINGLEY: Yeah, well this is exactly where we are at the moment, is that this virus has showed very little ability in the first place to jump from chickens to humans.

120 million chickens have either died or been killed as a precaution and you know, we have three or four dozen human cases. So quite clearly, this virus cannot easily jump from humans, and there is no evidence at this stage, firm evidence, that it can move from human to humans.

We do have a couple of cases, one in Vietnam and one in Thailand that are very, very suspect. There's no evidence of poultry circumstances surrounding these two cases. But even if that's true, quite clearly, there's not yet established the ability to jump from human to human.

PETER LLOYD: So what sort of recommendations is the WHO making to governments about how they should prepare for such a catastrophe?

PETER CORDINGLEY: Well, the first thing we tell them is, if there is a pandemic, don't count on a vaccine because first of all, there won't be one for at least six months. And secondly, even if there is one in large numbers after six months, you will not be able to immunise everybody. And if everybody is not immunised then quite clearly, this virus can slip through.

Everybody in the world has to be immunised to stop it and you can see that's just not realistic. So, they should a) stock up on anti-virals. Theses are the core anti-flu drugs that people use every year. It will not stop this virus, we don't think, but it might make the medical impact of this virus less serious.

The second thing they have to do is to scale up their public health systems. There's going to be a lot of sick people, hospitals are going to be overwhelmed. Isolation wards need now, to be identified and put in place. Doctors and nurses have to be trained in the right reactions.

And the third advice is of course, there is going to be large scale absenteeism from the workplace. These are the things that they should think about now, not when the pandemic starts, if it does start.

MARK COLVIN: The World Health Organisation's Peter Cordingley with our South-East Asia Correspondent Peter Lloyd.