Manila, Dec 5, 2006 AEST (ABN Newswire) - The international effort against avian influenza requires innovative approaches that engage all stakeholders, ADB Vice-President Ursula Schaefer-Preuss told a meeting on the issue today.
"Your presence is an important signal on how the international community continues to work together in combating avian influenza in Asia and the Pacific," Ms. Ursula Schaefer-Preuss said.
She was speaking at the opening of a Joint Review Meeting on an ADB-supported project for Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza in Asia and the Pacific, approved in March.
Present were representatives of ADB's implementing partners in the project - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and World Health Organization - as well as several bilateral and multilateral agencies and the private sector working in the region.
The meeting is part of global efforts against avian influenza, the Vice-President said. "We are fully aware that this partnership includes governments, international agencies, and the private sector, as well as small scale poultry farmers, communities, and local governments," she said. "All organizations involved bring their own particular strengths into the fold."
The disease has spread rapidly in bird populations, reaching more than 30 countries, Ms. Schaefer-Preuss pointed out. She cited an ADB study from late 2005 that projected that the economic, as well as human, toll from a related human pandemic would be devastating, resulting in up to US$300 billion in economic losses in the region.
"No one can be sure when or if the present H5N1 virus will mutate into a form easily transmissible from human to human and be responsible for a new influenza pandemic," said Ms. Schaefer-Preuss, who is the Vice-President responsible for ADB's knowledge management and sustainable development operations. "But new infectious diseases will continue to emerge, just as avian influenza did after SARS."
She added that investing in development of animal and human health infrastructure, resources, and systems would ensure that countries are strong enough in the long term to reduce the risks of emerging infectious diseases, as they appear.
"We need to address these issues in innovative ways and continue to engage all stakeholders in these processes," she stressed.
The focus of the ADB project is on regional collaboration and regional capacity building, with an emergency support component to help control and reduce the spread of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus among poultry and to increase the region's preparedness for a potential human influenza pandemic.
Contact
Graham Dwyer
Email: gdwyer@adb.org
Tel:+632 632 5253; Mobile: +63 920 938-6487
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