Europe unprepared for Avian flu

The weekend Financial Times reported that Brussels says EU unprepared for bird flu:

Europe is not properly prepared for a flu pandemic and has inadequate supplies of vaccines and antiviral drugs, says an internal European Commission document obtained by the Financial Times.

With avian flu on its borders, the human vaccine situation in the EU is “far from satisfactory”, according to a note presented last Wednesday by Markos Kyprianou, health and consumer protection commissioner, to his colleagues ahead of a meeting of EU health ministers on October 20.

Some member states have reserved all available antiviral drug supplies for years to come, leaving countries that may be first hit by the disease without any access to drugs, it adds.

...The internal EU document says 16 of the 25 members have informed Brussels about their supplies of antiviral drugs, to be used if avian flu jumps to humans. There are 10m doses in the EU and European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), and a further 36m to be delivered by the end of 2007 enough for about 10 per cent of the EU population, against World Health Organisation recommendations for 25 per cent coverage.

The report said: “There are complaints from member states (and third countries) that orders from some countries have reserved all manufacturing capacity for several years to come, leaving no possibilities for others who may be hit first.”

It also said the situation was “far from satisfactory”, for pandemic vaccines. “Some member states have concluded advanced purchase agreements for the H5N1 virus vaccine”.

For more coverage see the excellent weblogs Avian Flu - What we need to know by Silviu Dochia and Tyler Cowen, and Effect Measure. See also Recombinomics (Henry L Niman), the Flu Wikie, The Flu News Blog, iFlu.org,  Bird Flu Monitor, Avian Flu (H5N1), and The Coming Influenza Pandemic (hat tip: Bloggers Blog).

Also see Edward Hugh's recent post at Afoe, and Peter Sandman's long piece The Flu Pandemic Preparedness Snowball. For more information, the World Health Organisation have a good FAQ page, and Henry Niman has maps showing the spread of Avian flu in Indonesia and Russia and Eastern Europe.