Bird flu pandemic is inevitable - WHO chief
Alexander Higgins
November 08 2005 at 02:22AM
Geneva - A deadly new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be "incalculable" unless the world is ready, the chief of the United Nations health agency said on Monday. The World Bank estimated the economic cost to be $800-billion (about R5,4-trillion).
"We have been experiencing a relentless spread of avian flu" among migratory birds and domestic poultry, Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organisation, told a meeting of 600 health experts, the first attempt to devise a global strategy in case the bird flu virus changes to transmit easily among humans.
Lee stressed that a human flu pandemic had yet to begin anywhere in the world.
"However, the signs are clear that it is coming," he said, noting that a changed avian flu virus caused the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people in 1918 to 1919.
LINK
November 08 2005 at 02:22AM
Geneva - A deadly new global pandemic of human influenza is inevitable and suffering will be "incalculable" unless the world is ready, the chief of the United Nations health agency said on Monday. The World Bank estimated the economic cost to be $800-billion (about R5,4-trillion).
"We have been experiencing a relentless spread of avian flu" among migratory birds and domestic poultry, Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organisation, told a meeting of 600 health experts, the first attempt to devise a global strategy in case the bird flu virus changes to transmit easily among humans.
Lee stressed that a human flu pandemic had yet to begin anywhere in the world.
"However, the signs are clear that it is coming," he said, noting that a changed avian flu virus caused the deadly Spanish flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people in 1918 to 1919.
LINK
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