Avian influenza is different from SARS in many ways, and there are three major difficulties in the prevention of this deadly disease, said an official with the World Health Organization (WHO) at the ongoing 55th Session of WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific.

Generally speaking, SARS mostly broke out in cities and hit people, but avian flu mainly occurs in rural areas among poultry. The surveillance systems in rural areas are often not as good as in urban areas, and the surveillance of humans is easier than of animals, said Shigeru Omi, director of WHO's Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, at a press briefing on the sideline of the conference Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Omi said the poultry industry is a very important part of economy to many Asian countries. "Whether we admit or not, people's first instinct is to protect the poultry industry. That's the reality and challenge we have to face."

In addition, Omi said the prevention and treatment of SARS was usually under the mandate of health ministries. "But when it comes to avian influenza, it becomes more complicated." In many countries, it is the agricultural department that is responsible for animal health, so the coordination between health and agricultural departments is key in avian flu prevention.

"Internationally, we also face the same problem. The WHO is strengthening coordination with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization and World Organization for Animal Health. It is not easy," he said.

In November 2003, highly pathogenic avian influenza was reported from the Republic of Korea and the pathogen was identified as influenza A (H5N1). Other outbreaks were soon reported from other countries in Asia and over 100 million birds in Asia either died of the diseases or were culled. To date, there were 39 human infections and 28 deaths.

The WHO regional director said despite the recent experience of SARS, once again many countries were caught unprepared by avian flu.

Although most countries have surveillance systems for communicable diseases, they were usually unable to function as early warning systems and many countries lacked the laboratory capacity to support surveillance and outbreak investigation, Omi said.

He said there existed a risk that the H5N1 virus got mutated from an animal virus to a human virus. "Improving preparedness for such events is a concern both for individual countries and the international community."

He urged all countries in the world to be more alert to avian flu, to improve capacities for dealing with possible outbreaks of infectious diseases and take regional and global actions to prevent avian flu.

(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2004)