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  Today Online 28 Mar 07
How fast can we rush flu drugs to Cambodia?
WHO, Asean to coordinate mock transfer of Tamiflu from S'pore to Cambodia
Tan Hui Leng huileng@mediacorp.com.sg

A STRAIN of bird flu mutates in Cambodia and sparks a deadly human flu outbreak. The only hope of stemming the pandemic is to dip into the stock of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu, which is housed in Singapore.

How will this scenario play out? The World Health Organization (WHO) intends to find out on Monday and Tuesday, when it conducts its first regional exercise to test preparedness for a human flu pandemic.

"We think there is a very real danger of a pandemic but we don't know when," said WHO spokesman for the Western Pacific Region, Mr Peter Cordingley. "This exercise is to see if we are ready ... You never know until you try--this could be a terrific success or we could find all kinds of things that we never thought of are going wrong."

Singapore is the storehouse for Asean's half a million courses of Tamiflu, which will be used in the event of a human flu outbreak. The drug is being held here by a semi-official agency of the Japanese government responsible for its management and transport to an affected country.

Singapore's Health Ministry will not be involved in it but will be informed of its activation as part of the communications procedure. The effort will be coordinated by the WHO Western Pacific office in Manila.

Scientists fear the H5N1 bird flu strain could mutate into a form which could easily spread among humans, leading to a global pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

The exercise, Panstop 2007, will involve a mock scenario in which there is a human outbreak in Cambodia. As part of the activity, WHO Western Pacific regional director Dr Shigeru Omi will ask the Asean Secretariat to dispatch Tamiflu from Singapore to Cambodia. Protective equipment such as goggles and masks will also be sent.

Cambodia saw six human H5N1 cases in 2005 and 2006. The deadly strain is also endemic in the country's chicken population. "We didn't choose Cambodia because we think that's where the flu outbreak is going to happen next," he told Today. He said it was more a matter of convenience.

The Asean Secretariat's coordinator for avian influenza, Dr Azmi Mat Akhir, told Today that WHO recommended its Cambodian office for the exercise as it was the most prepared in terms of staffing and communication tools such as computers.

The second "standby country" for the exercise was Vietnam where there have been more than 40 human H5N1 deaths.

Nothing will be physically moved in the exercise, but Dr Azmi said that the Japanese distributor may dispatch empty boxes within Singapore. "We don't have the resources to book space on a 747 so there are certain things that wouldn't be put to the test," said Mr Cordingley.

"But (what will be tested is) basically: do we know who to speak to in Asean, are we phoning the right numbers, does Asean have the system in place to respond quickly?"

Thus far, there have been 281 cases of bird flu infection among humans and 169 deaths worldwide, mostly in South-east Asia.
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