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Biosecurity Briefing
Nations Pledge $406 Million to Fight Avian Flu, EU Bans Poultry from Poland Following H5N1 Outbreak By Michelle Cantu, December 14, 2007 From December 4–6, 2007, representatives from 111 countries and 29 international organizations gathered for the New Delhi International Ministerial Conference on Avian and Pandemic Influenza. Participants addressed the need for improvements in animal and public health, pandemic preparedness, cooperation among these groups, intergovernmental solidarity and cooperation among countries.1 Although a highlight of the conference was the donation of $406 million pledged by 9 countries, this figure remains short of fulfilling the $1.2 billion that the World Bank has estimated is needed to prepare for avian influenza over the next 2-3 years.2 Historically, donors have made pledges to fight avian influenza in the form of in-kind support, grants, or loans for “the following purposes and recipients:
The World Bank and the UN System Influenza Coordinator released a review of funds pledged to date in report, entitled Responses to Avian Influenza and State of Pandemic Readiness. According to the report, countries pledged a total of $2.3 billion between 2005 and 2007. Of that sum, $1.7 billion has actually been committed and a little more than $1 billion has been paid out.3 Of the $2.3 billion in pledges, $1.326 billion is in the form of grants from individual donor countries and the European Commission, and $983 million is in the form of loans from multilateral development banks (MDBs).2 Attendees at the New Delhi meeting also addressed the need to “shift from focusing on emergency responses to avian flu to developing medium- and long-term strategies to deal with H5N1 and the threat of a human flu pandemic.”2 John E. Lange, head of the U.S. delegation to the conference, remarked at the meeting, “While we have made progress in the years since the virus first appeared, we now need to shift some of our efforts from the ‘emergency’ phase of identifying and dealing with avian outbreaks to a greater emphasis on long-term capacity-building to improve both animal and human health systems…”2 In related news, Reuters reports that the European Commission is expected to extend its ban on poultry and eggs from Poland after the country experienced an outbreak of the H5N1 virus. Avian flu has been detected in 11 central Poland villages and 110,000 birds have been culled. Poland is one of the EU’s biggest poultry producers.4 References
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