More funds needed in bird flu fight

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-04-26 14:15

China needs more money and more help to improve its health services to fight bird flu, an official said on Thursday, while the WHO said the threat of a pandemic remained a real possibility.


Chickens are put on sale at a poultry market in Xiangfan, central China's Hubei province March 29, 2007. [Reuters]

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China has the world's largest human population and largest domestic bird population, which presents a unique risk, said Li Jianguo, deputy director-general of the health ministry's centre for public health emergencies.

"The crucial area in the fight against bird flu is in the countryside. Grassroots' medical facilities and people's knowledge about bird flu are quite weak," he told a ceremony to mark a World Bank grant of $2.65 million to fight influenza.

"China is a developing country. Although the government has invested a lot of money in the fight against bird flu and pays it great attention, we need more money and technical aid to raise preparedness, especially at the grass roots," Li said.

More than half the country's domestic poultry live in people's backyards, which experts say raises the risk of sick birds infecting humans.
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