Asian nations urged to use Sars tactics against bird flu

Pakistani poultry workers inject an anti-influenza vaccine into a chicken inside a poultry farm on the outskirts of Karachi yesterday. Since November 2003 some 3.5 million chickens have died on 3,000 farms around Karachi due to a vain influenza H7 and H9 according to Pakistan's Poultry Association.. PHOTO: AFP

Nine Asian countries have now confirmed they have been hit by bird flu, killing at least eight people and leading to the slaughter or death of more than 20 million chickens.

"The Sars outbreak produced a spirit of transparency and co-operation among nations," said World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman Peter Cordingley. "That's what we need for the bird flu conference.

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"We need countries to open up and share information in the way they did against Sars," he said of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) outbreak that erupted in southern China and went on to kill some 800 people in 32 countries.

With the disease now spreading apparently uncontrolled as far north as Pakistan and as far east as Japan, the Thai hosts said they hoped the half-day talks would restore confidence in the region's shattered poultry industry.

Ministers and senior officials from agriculture and health ministries from the affected nations of Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan and Vietnam have been invited to attend.