The death of a 30-year-old Indonesian woman of bird flu last week at Tangerang, a satellite city west of the capital, Jakarta, is reported to have taken the death toll in that worst affected country by the virus to 90. Needless to point out, it must have caused a scare. For, its latest victim came from where three children were diagnosed with the H5N1 virus last month, and two of them died.
Quoting an official of the health ministry, a news agency report said now the number of cases has risen to 112, of which 90 have been fatal, saying both tests were positive and elaborating that two tests must come back positive before a patient is confirmed as having avian influenza here.
Another official said earlier that the woman, who had come into contact with sick poultry near her home, had fallen sick on October 23. She was hospitalised in Tangerang on October 30 and transferred to a Jakarta hospital a day later. A health ministry official said that the authorities were co-ordinating closely with hospitals in Tangerang and had informed local health centres to beware of the virus.
Now that the number of cases has risen to 112, of which 90 have been fatal, it should be frightening not only for Indonesia, but also for Asia as a whole, rather the entire world which has been bracing for the bird flu pandemic with the World Health Organisation actively involved in efforts for its prevention from a massive all-encompassing thrust.
It will be recalled that it was about a month ago when the WHO warned that European plans to cope with any possible flu pandemic have major weaknesses which might lead to chaos. For as WHO had pointed out, many European governments risked "chaotic service responses and public anxiety" by leaving it up to regional or local authorities to organise drug delivery during a pandemic and giving them insignificant guidance.
More to this, it had also made the revelation that scientists feared that the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which emerged in humans in Asia in the 1990s, could mutate into a more virulent form and that it could easily be passed between humans, thereby triggering a global flu pandemic with the frightening potential to kill millions across the world.
Of course, this could be the worst happening to a world where advancement of science and technology has been instrumental not only in the conquest of unconquerable ailments but also in their prevention. Little wonder, with increasing fears of impending avian flu pandemic, as the WHO also pointed out, recent scientific advances should boost production capacity of pandemic flu vaccines to 4.5 billion doses annually by 2010.
Quoting Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the WHO's Initiative for Vaccine Research, a news report stated that with influenza vaccine production capacity on the rise, a beginning was being made to inspire hope of dealing effectively with the threat of an influenza pandemic. Reference, in this regard, was made to the capability of pharmaceutical manufacturers, including global giants Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Pasteur, to boost production of trivalent seasonal flu vaccines to around 565 million doses from 350 million in 2006.
Again, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations expects to be capable of increasing capacity to one billion doses in 2010. It is, however, just another matter that this boost was found to be still short of the WHO's target of being able to provide a vaccine to all of the world's 6.7 billion people within six months of declaration of a pandemic.
As such, going all-out to meet the challenge in all its dimensions, the WHO will be seen to have redoubled its efforts by setting up a special advisory group to report to the organisation's director general, Margaret Chan, on the issue. It should be reassuring to learn that the group, meeting behind closed doors, agreed to promote seasonal flu vaccine programmes, to stimulate demand, and then goad the pharmaceutical industry on to maintain production capacity beyond seasonal demand.
All this is quite encouraging on the global front. But vulnerable as Pakistan happens to be to the spread of avian flu, time has come for us to meet the challenge from mobilisation of our own resources in line with the WHO-led global effort in a big way.