Proper surveillance can stop flu pandemic: expert

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - An influenza pandemic can be avoided if proper disease surveillance and control measures are carried out promptly and thoroughly, leading bird flu expert and microbiologist Yi Guan said.

Guan, who studied the H5N1 bird flu virus after it showed up in people in Hong Kong in 1997 and has tracked its footprints all over the world ever since, is convinced that the world can stop the bug in its tracks if it has enough resolve.

"If proper surveillance is in place for animals and humans, yes, we can stop pandemic influenza forever. Not just for H5N1, it may also work for other subtypes of viruses," he said in an interview over the weekend.

"We have the ability to remove pandemics if we have a long-term strategy."

Guan, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, knows just how backbreaking and mundane surveillance work can be.

He and his researchers have tested more than 200,000 stool samples of chickens, aquatic and wild birds collected from various parts of China since 2000, screening them for the H5N1 virus which experts say could cause the next flu pandemic, killing millions of people.

The university laboratory where Guan works is a World Health Organisation reference facility that also helps to analyze H5N1 samples from other parts of the world, particularly Asia.

Here, Guan has been able to compare H5N1 samples, trace mutations in the virus and track its footprints.