SUMMARY OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OF ECOSOC AND SENIOR UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM COORDINATOR FOR AVIAN AND HUMAN INFLUENZA

The President of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), Ambassador Ali Hachani, and the Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza, Mr. David Nabarro, who also is the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for the Avian and Human Influenza, today held a press conference at the Palais des Nations following a Special Event at ECOSOC entitled Avian Influenza: a global emergency.

Ambassador Hachani, opened the press conference by recalling that last year in November, ECOSOC had held an informal “Special Event on Avian Influenza”. Since then, the Avian Influenza had spread outside Asia and sporadic infections amongst humans continued at an increasing rate. In this context, the President said that the parallel event ECOSOC has organised in Geneva on the H5N1 virus issue came at the right time as the main focus should be on coordinating the work and efforts of Member States, the United Nations System and Inter-Governmental Agencies, to fight the spread of this disease.

Ambassador Hachani stressed that their intention was not to frighten people with more “horror stories” about the spread of the H5N1 virus, but rather to draw the international community’s attention to this issue and to provide a platform for the relevant parties to better coordinate their work and level of preparedness in view of further spreading of the disease. This mission fitted very well with the President’s vision of ECOSOC’s role as coordination and raising awareness among Member States should be two of ECOSOC’s priorities. The ECOSOC debate, which had taken place earlier today, was a good example of the usefulness of such a meeting and reached the goals it hoped for, he said.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Nabarro, paid tribute to ECOSOC and its President for organising the debate they just had taken part in and in which they heard Member States, UN agencies and other Inter-Governmental bodies express the problems and successes they had experienced during their struggle to contain and stop the spreading of the Avian Flu. Dr. Nabarro said it was hugely important to do this groundwork now and not later as in the past six months, the Avian Flu had been travelling the world at great speed to some 32 countries.

There had been a considerable amount of success in the work put in by most Member States in their work to contain the spread of the disease and in improving their level of preparedness, Dr. Nabarro said. However, there were many other countries, particularly on the African continent, where there still was a lot of work to be done as they had been unable to do enough to coordinate the work on animal health with the human sector, and failing for a variety of reasons to implement strategies adopted by the world community on an efficient level locally. “One of the main reasons was, of course, the lack of resources,” Dr. Nabarro said. In this context, he urged the “wealthy donor nations, the EU and others to understand that giving funds to this work is in their self-interest, as the Avian Flu “knew no borders.”

Dr. Nabarro stated that the threat of Avian Flu is “not science fiction, but a very real and dangerous threat that was not restricted to H5N1 as there are a variety of pathogens stemming from the animal kingdom that can threaten human security.” Now, Mr. Nabarro said, the degree of recognition given to strengthening animal health services and improving human public health in a UN meeting such as ECOSOC was very encouraging. There had also been a lot of discussions about money and Dr. Nabarro explained that they had a clear overview of the pledges, commitments and money actually dispersed. Finally, Dr. Nabarro informed the press that a large meeting was planned to be held in Bamako, Mali, hosted by the African Union, that was going to focus on the threat on Avian Flu but with a particular look at the needs of African countries confronted with the spread of H5N1.

Asked to give an overview of the situation regarding the mutation of the virus, Mr. Nabarro said that human to human transmission of a limited kind does occur. However, Dr. Nabarro said that the discovery of the mutation of a virus did not mean that a pandemic is about to start as there are various types of mutations and most of those are not significant in terms of human health point of view. Dr. Nabarro said the scientific community at large was looking to find dangerous mutations that could lead to human to human transmission but so far this had not yet been seen. He added that they still didn’t know for sure why the H5N1 virus affects some humans, and not others.

In response to a question, Dr. Nabarro said that “We as a world need to be on the lookout for pathogens that move from the animal kingdom into the human race and poses a threat to our individual and collective security.” Never forget that HIV, Ebola, SARS and yellow fever all are viruses stemming from the animal kingdom, and that is where these pathogens are going to come from, Dr. Nabarro said. “This leads us to a stark conclusion which is that we need to invest in defending our race against pathogens that come from animals and cause major suffering,” he said.

Asked to evaluate the acceleration of the spread of Avian Flu, Dr. Nabarro said “the virus was certainly moving into more and more countries with a speed that is - for me and my colleagues - a continuing and serious cause of concern,” he said Given the seasonality of the spread of the virus, our concerns must heighten as the colder weather moves into the northern hemisphere and we are evermore anxious to make sure that developing countries improve their preparedness, Dr. Nabarro said.

Asked to detail the money pledged at the Beijing conference, Dr. Nabarro said all the information relating to the money pledged in Beijing was detailed in a joint report issued by the UN and the World Bank today, on page 31, and where you can see who pledged and committed what. “We would have liked to see a higher commitment figure and the dispersal money is too low which is why the Secretary-General has asked the countries that has committed money to speed up the process.” Dr. Nabarro said.

A journalist said the budget FAO received to fight the Avian Flu was half of what they had asked for and whether that lack of resources was a cause of concern at this point, Dr. Nabarro said that he often had expressed his opinion that several of the UN agencies working in the field are short of cash and that he was particularly concerned about those who work in the frontline, such as FAO and WHO. However, “countries are also short of resources and they struggle to mobilize international support”, he said.

Asked what examples of successes he could mention, Dr. Nabarro said they were careful using the word “success”. However, “in Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt and China there had been very good and intense work when confronted by the Avian Flu. There, strong political leadership from the top combined with very good national systems where they bring together agriculture and human health has played an important role. In addition, full engagement from the local community, strong communication programmes so that people knows what goes on as well compensation schemes for farmers whose stock have been culled, are other key elements in the relative “success” the above-mentioned states have had, Dr. Nabarro said.