Group: Bird flu pandemic risk overblown


Fears of a flu pandemic originating from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus were overblown, the head of the World Organization for Animal Health said Thursday.
The Paris-based body — an intergovernmental organization responsible for improving animal health worldwide — has been at the forefront of global efforts to monitor and fight H5N1, which scientists have tracked because they fear it may mutate into a human flu virus that starts a pandemic.
But "the risk was overestimated," said Bernard Vallat, director general of the animal health organization, also known as the OIE.
Vallat said the H5N1 virus has proved extremely stable, despite concerns that it could mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans.
"We have never seen such a stable strain," Vallat said.
He said concerns a few years ago that a flu pandemic from H5N1 might be imminent lacked scientific proof.
"It was just nonscientific supposition," he told reporters.
H5N1 has infected more than 340 people and killed at least 212 since 2003, mostly in Asia. The virus strain does not easily spread between people, however, and most patients had been infected through close contact with sick poultry.
While playing down concerns of a pandemic, Vallat said bird flu "will always be a risk" — not just H5N1, but also other strains that could mutate and become more virulent for animals.
He said vaccination campaigns were needed in countries where H5N1 has become endemic, including Indonesia, Egypt and, to a lesser extent, Nigeria.
Risks from H5N1 would be "greatly diminished" if the virus were eradicated in these countries, which have become "reservoirs" for bird flu, he said.