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Asian officials meet on bird flu
Ministers from the health or agriculture departments of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, China, India, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka and senior officials from the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health are expected to take part in the conference.
Syed
Ali Mujtaba
Mizzima
News: 27July, 2006
New Delhi: Officials from 11 Asian countries, including Burma, met in New Delhi today for a two-day discussion on ways to tackle bird flu outbreaks.
Ministers from the health or agriculture departments of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, China, India, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka and senior officials from the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health are expected to take part in the conference.
The meeting will focus on preparing for a pandemic, animal husbandry issues and how to improve communication among local authorities.
"Communication was a major issue in all the countries hit by the bird flu and one needs to strategies to overcome this deficiency because you need to reach out to the community and they need to understand what are the issues so they can take the desired action," Harsaran Bir Kaur Pandey, the spokeswoman for WHO's Southeast Asia office in New Delhi, said.
Burma is among several Southeast Asian countries that have been hit by the bird flu virus.