UN says Indonesia needs US$50 million to beat bird flu in poultry

Jakarta, 21 June 2006 1. Wide of bird flu conference with sign overhead reading "Meeting of the Avian Influenza Situation in Indonesia" 2. Wide of meeting 3. Indonesian official addressing meeting 4. Various of people listening 5. Wide of conference 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Keisi Fukuda, Coordinator, Global Influenza Programme, World Health Organisation (WHO): "When we have human influenza, regular influenza, then we can see outbreaks in schools, we can see outbreaks in towns, but we have not seen that kind of human to human transmission. So that is really what we are looking for right now. And in Indonesia right now, we have not seen evidence for that." Tana Karo, 25 May 2006 7. Children in village near chickens 8. Various of chickens 9. Children in village 10. Close up of chicken 11. Wide of chicken running after duck 12. Ducks Jakarta, 21 June 2006 13. SOUNDBITE (English) Keisi Fukuda, Coordinator, Global Influenza Programme, World Health Organisation (WHO): "I think that I can say that if there is widespread human to human transmission, there is no country in the world, no country in the world which is prepared." 14. Various of meeting STORYLINE: Indonesia needs donors to give it 50 (m) million US dollars over the next three years to establish a system capable of fighting bird flu in poultry, a UN animal health expert said on Wednesday at the opening of a conference on Bird flu in Jakarta. Indonesia's call for help came after a surge in human cases this year that have put the country on pace to become the hardest hit by the virus. The three-day international meeting of bird flu experts in Jakarta comes a month after Indonesia reported the world's largest reported family cluster. The meeting, which brings together scientists from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN Food and Animal Organisation and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, comes a month after Indonesia grappled with the world's largest reported family cluster of bird flu cases. On Tuesday, tests confirmed a 14-year-old boy died from the virus, pushing the nation's official death toll from the disease to 39 people. The boy from Jakarta died last week, and tests sent to a World Health Organisation-approved laboratory in Hong Kong came back positive, according to the Health Ministry. The teen had been around dead birds. Six of seven family members from a remote farming village on Sumatra island died after testing positive for the bird flu virus. An eighth relative was buried before samples could be taken, but the WHO considers her part of the cluster. Scientists have not been able to link the infected relatives to contact with sick birds and believe limited human-to-human transmission occurred. Keisi Fukuda, Coordinator, Global Influenza Programme at WHO said there was no evidence of human to human transmission in Indonesia. However, the virus has not mutated and no one outside the family has fallen ill. Fukuda warned that no country in the world was prepared to handle a mutation of the virus into a form that is highly contagious among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds. At least 129 people have died worldwide since the virus began ravaging Asian poultry in late 2003. Indonesia, which logged an average of one death every two and a half days in May alone, is on the fast track to becoming the world's hardest hit country, trailing only Vietnam, where 42 people have died. Keyword - Birdflu You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/28ec8a1d143c31d27732f7392819940c Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork