Defence against bird flu

A LEADING daily newspaper reported in its front page on Sunday that Swiss firm Roche has licensed an Indian company to make a generic anti-flu drug, Tamiflu, for India and other developing countries. The drug is seen as a particularly effective in the treatment of bird flu in humans. This piece of news is significant, for India surrounds Bangladesh on all three sides and there have been reports about poultry birds in India getting infected by the avian flu which has the potential of fast spreading to humans.

The decision of the Swiss company to allow production of its anti-bird flu drug in India is not without a commercial motive. It is probably predicting a spread of the disease in India and the facility to make the anti-viral drug in that country will improve both its defences against the disease and at the same time prove to be a good business opportunity for the Swiss company. As for the Indian government, their interest in allowing Roche to produce Tamiflu under joint venture stems from the acute concern about public health – the need to have preparations if the flu takes epidemic proportions and starts infecting humans. The significance of the above news for Bangladesh is that the avian flu is now lurking as a real danger to Bangladesh. It could infiltrate into Bangladesh and hence there is a need to improve safeguards against the disease.

Bangladesh has every reason to be extremely wary of the bird flu warning that it has been receiving as part of the worldwide alarms in relation to this dangerous public health threat. The flu has killed humans in our Asian neighbourhood and biologists have predicted a likely uncontrollable human epidemic from the avian virus if not checked by timely steps by all. BBC recently quoted an UN official in a news report that between 5 and 150 million people round the world could die from a major outbreak of Avian flu any time. Thus, the grave threat cannot be taken lightly and Bangladesh as a densely populated country must lose no time in building up defences against it. The government earlier banned import of chicks from some South-East Asian countries and later banned such import from four European countries as well. But clearly, there are other measures that need to be taken promptly to build stronger defences against bird flu.

The greatest need at the moment appears to be stocking of anti-viral medicines for the treatment of both poultries and humans. The government should go for an urgent stock of the anti-viral drugs when other countries with large poultry sectors have been scrambling to make good stocks of such drugs. The funding for the drugs is considered a problem. But in view of the likely devastations it may cause the government should be taking exceptional steps to mobilise funds at the fastest for the import of the anti-viral drugs.

Apart from limiting or treating any outbreak of the disease among humans, the anti-viral medicines would be playing a very useful role in containing an epidemic in the country’s poultry sector which has grown into a robust one employing some five million people directly and adding some 80 billion Taka to the GDP in the last fiscal year.