The United States pledged an additional $320 million to the global fight against bird flu and warned on Saturday against complacency in combating the virus, which could mutate and cause a deadly pandemic. The figure brings to $949 million Washington's total pledges to fight avian influenza, which has killed 245 people in Asia, Africa, and Europe since late 2003.
Countless birds have also been culled. "The United States is pledging an additional $320 million in international assistance for avian and pandemic influenza," said Paula Dobriansky, Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs.
She did not say how much of the US aid would be in the form of grants to developing countries and how much would come in the form of conditional loans. Speaking at the opening of a ministerial conference in Egypt, Dobriansky echoed comments from Egyptian ministers and heads of international organisations in warning of public complacency and "flu fatigue".
"(There is) a growing feeling that the threat of an influenza pandemic has somehow diminished and that scarce resources could be better used elsewhere in the field of public health, in other words flu fatigue," she said. Official pledges will be made at the end of the conference on Sunday.
The World Bank estimates that a global pandemic resulting from the mutation of bird flu could cost $3 trillion and result in a nearly 5 percent drop in world gross domestic product. It has said that more than 70 million people could die world-wide in a severe pandemic.
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