Regional exercise to test Asia bird flu preparedness

Cambodia, Singapore and the World Health Organisation are to conduct a two-day exercise next week to test Asia's ability to stem a bird flu pandemic, the UN agency said here Tuesday.

The exercise, Panstop 2007, involves a mock scenario in which a strain of bird flu with the potential for a human pandemic is discovered in Cambodia.

Tamiflu and protective equipment such as goggles and masks have to be swiftly dispatched from a stockpile in Singapore to Cambodia.

The exercise will be run from the WHO Western Pacific office in Manila on April 2 and 3 and would be the first ever test of the region's capability to "respond rapidly to signs of a pandemic and to snuff it out," the WHO said in a statement.

Panstop 2007 will be a test of rapid containment, involving risk assessment, communications, and decision-making. No supplies will actually be moved, it added.

The WHO says there have been 281 cases of bird flu infection among humans and 169 deaths worldwide, mostly in Southeast Asia.

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

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Japan would also take part in the WHO-led exercise.

Tokyo has provided ASEAN -- which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- with half a million courses of the drug Oseltamivir, also known as Tamiflu, plus a large quantity of personal protective equipment, all of it stockpiled in Singapore.

During the exercise, WHO regional director Shigeru Omi would place a call to ASEAN to recommend the release of some of the Tamiflu supplies and protective equipment to the outbreak zone.

The exercise is expected to yield practical information for all parties about the efficiency of procedures, to discover gaps in planning and identify opportunities for efficient rapid containment of a human influenza outbreak, the WHO said.