EU underprepared for flu

The European Union urgently needs to increase preparations for a potential influenza pandemic stemming from avian flu, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) official and a leading expert in zoonotic diseases. Their warning comes just a week before an emergency meeting called by WHO to discuss the risk of a pandemic.Klaus Stöhr, head of WHO's global influenza program, and Albert Osterhaus, of the Institute of Virology, Erasmus University in the Netherlands, both told The Scientist that the European Commission, the European Union's executive body, has not done enough to prepare for a bird flu–related pandemic.Stöhr noted that the average span between global influenza pandemics is 27 years, and that the last global pandemic occurred in 1968. With avian flu circulating in Asia and beyond and worrisome human cases appearing, the risk of it spinning into a human pandemic is high. "We have not been this close to a pandemic since 1968," Stöhr said. "It is time now to prepare for the next pandemic."Underscoring that concern, WHO last week asked 16 vaccine companies and health officials from the United States and other key countries to attend a November 11 meeting in Geneva to discuss plans for dealing with a flu pandemic.Stöhr told The Scientist he was particularly concerned about the lack of effort within the European Union to develop a vaccine. "The EU is spending just about no money on bird flu pandemic vaccine development," he said.The H5N1 strain of bird flu has so far killed more than 30 people in Asia and prompted authorities to slaughter 100 million birds. Concern was sparked in Europe during October when authorities discovered two infected eagles smuggled into Brussels airport.Stöhr said that in the near term, the European Union needs to focus on encouraging pharmaceutical companies to develop a human vaccine to combat H5N1. WHO collaborating centers in April finished development of H5N1 prototype strains, which are now available at no cost to drug companies for clinical batch production, testing, and ultimately final vaccine production and marketing, he said.Stöhr estimated that a H5N1 flu vaccine could be developed and ready to market in about 6 months. "I do believe in the short term that academic research is not what is needed," he said.Although Europe is home to nearly three quarters of global drug producing capacity, only Aventis Pasteur and Chiron Corporation are developing a human bird flu vaccine—under contracts with the US National Institutes of Health. "The market forces are not there to bring them [the companies] in," Stöhr said. "Otherwise, they would have started development. The EU needs to discuss with the pharmaceutical industry what can be done."Erasmus University's Osterhaus said the European Union needs to take immediate action to be prepared for a bird flu pandemic. "The situation we are now in is sort of like fire prevention. You don't wait to buy a fire extinguisher until there is a fire, you buy one before."Osterhaus said the European Union needs to develop bird flu strategy and provide structural funds earmarked exclusively for vaccine research, adding that it also needs to be stockpiling antiviral medicines.Fabio Fabbi, European Commission spokesman for research, told The Scientist that the European Union supported several bird flu–related research projects, including spending under the Fifth Framework Program of about €1.8 million from 2002 to 2005 for pathogenesis and improved diagnosis and control of avian influenza infections. Bird flu–related funding under the Sixth Framework Program includes €1.1 million for 2004 through 2007 to develop strategies for prevention, control and monitoring of epizootic poultry diseases and €1.5 million for improved laboratory and on-site detection of viruses in animals and animal products. "The commission is doing its utmost to tackle bird flu, within the limits and available budget lines of our Research Framework Program," Fabbi said.

EU underprepared for flu

Europe has not done enough to ready itself for a possible pandemic, experts warn

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