ASIA WHO says to pile up anti-virals for bird flu

No human vaccine is yet available for the virus.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Countries should consider stockpiling anti-viral drugs in case the bird flu striking Asia's poultry becomes equally contagious among people, the World Health Organization said today.
Indonesia meanwhile warned that it could lose a million jobs because of the avian influenza, and China, stung by criticism of its slow response to SARS last year, ordered its officials to act quickly to inform people about the outbreak.
The deadly virus is highly contagious among poultry, and millions of birds have died or have been destroyed in efforts to contain it.
Human deaths
The virus has killed 10 people -- eight in Vietnam and two in Thailand -- but so far there have been no reports of human-to-human transmission, with all cases traced to direct contact with sick birds.
Health experts fear that if avian influenza strikes someone suffering from human flu, the viruses could create a hybrid as deadly as bird flu and as contagious as human flu. That could cause a deadly global pandemic, the WHO has warned.
Because a vaccine for humans is many months away, and might not be widely available at first, countries need to consider stocking antiviral drugs, Klaus Stohr, WHO's chief flu expert, said.
Some countries already are negotiating with companies to supply the drug, and Japan wants 40 tons of the drug, Stohr said.
Protective gear
The World Health Organization also said that some workers in parts of Asia are not wearing adequate protective gear as they slaughter contaminated birds.
Indonesia, which for days insisted that large-scale slaughter of chickens was not necessary, reversed that decision and ordered a mandatory mass cull of poultry in infected areas.
Sofyan Sudrajad, an Agriculture Ministry official, said today that the outbreak could leave 1.25 million people jobless and cost the country $916 million. Japan, a big chicken customer, has banned Indonesian imports.
Vietnam said it may be necessary to destroy all the chickens in the country.
Thailand also said that bird flu has been found in poultry in a province bordering the popular tourist resort of Phuket, the first time the virus has been detected in the country's south.
China confirmed cases of bird flu today in poultry in two central provinces and said it was investigating suspected cases in three other regions.
Command center
Also today, the State Council, China's Cabinet, set up a national command center to battle bird flu and named a vice premier to run it. The move came a day after Premier Wen Jiabao issued an eight-point directive instructing agencies to deal with the problem aggressively.
The Chinese government was criticized for its early failure to respond to pleas for information and action during last year's outbreak of severe acute respiratory disease, or SARS, which eventually killed 349 people on China's mainland.
In the Philippines, which has not reported any bird flu, officials hosted a chicken lunch today with a WHO representative to underscore that properly cleaned and cooked poultry poses no danger.
OK in India
Officials in India, which has been spared a bird flu outbreak so far, said they expected a windfall in chicken orders from Middle Eastern and European countries that typically import from Asian countries now affected by the virus.
Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, said today it has stopped serving chicken on international flights. The airline said it had stopped taking chicken on board in countries affected by the regional avian flu outbreak, and chicken meals had been removed from in-flight menus in anticipation of falling demand caused by fears the virus.