CHINA: China's health authorities are keen to be seen to improve on their performance during last year's SARS epidemic, Clifford Coonan reports from Beijing.
Haunted by memories of the global public relations disaster over the tardy handling of last year's SARS epidemic, China's health authorities are intensifying the fight against a bird flu virus which has killed 12 people in south-east Asia.
Keen to be seen to be taking swift action this time, Chinese Prime Minister Mr Wen Jiabao travelled to two provinces where the virus has been reported. Officials were told they must halt the spread of the epidemic.
Mr Wen promised compensation for farmers to encourage speedy culls.
The World Health Organisation said surveillance networks which China created to fight last year's SARS epidemic could be adapted to detect human cases of bird flu. Beijing was co-operating.
"They've asked for our help - the plea came from the Chinese authorities. The spirit of co-operation is there and it's about dialogue now," said WHO spokesman Mr Roy Wadia.
"We are trying to get a team in place. So far we have two experts from the Netherlands, who have come from Vietnam and have experience in dealing with co-ordinating culling practices there and also helped with last year's Asian flu epidemics in their own country."
Mr Hui Liangyu, head of the National Bird Flu Prevention Headquarters set up last Friday, said the government had learned much in dealing with SARS. "We will win the battle with the precious experience we gained in combating the SARS crisis last year," he said.
Despite the upbeat tone, bird flu is affecting life in China, though not as dramatically as SARS did last year, when fear of the virus brought normal life to a halt and shaved a couple of percentage points off economic growth.
Some people have stopped eating chicken, despite assurances that properly- cooked poultry is not a danger. Serving chilli chicken in a Beijing restaurant on Tuesday, a waiter assured this correspondent the dish was safe to eat because the meat had arrived before the outbreak of the disease.
Shanghai closed 700 poultry markets as the city banned the trade and slaughter of fowl to curb the spread of bird flu. The Shanghai Pigeon Association banned flights of an estimated 400,000 racing pigeons in the city and urged its members to quarantine the birds.
Elsewhere in Asia, authorities in Thailand have banned cock-fighting until the epidemic is over.
Eleven of China's 31 provinces have confirmed or suspected outbreaks of avian influenza. Authorities have culled or vaccinated thousands of fowl.
The Chinese government denies reports that the disease started in southern China and then spread across Asia to 10 Asian countries, including Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.
What scientists are most worried about is someone contracting both the bird flu virus and a regular human influenza. This could lead to a scenario where the viruses swap genetic material and mutate into a form that is contagious.
Studies have shown the SARS virus mutated within weeks to become much more deadly than in its original form.
Some fear a hybrid virus could spark a pandemic similar to the one that killed 40 million around the globe in 1918-19.
Hong Kong health officials dealt with an outbreak in 1997 by killing all infected birds quickly, which is widely accepted as the best way to deal with an epidemic.
But governments in south-east Asia, including poor countries like Indonesia and Vietnam, have been slow to react with effective culls, fearing the impact on food supply and the overall economy.