Asian states hampering bird flu checks, says UN

ROME - A top UN agency official accused Asian nations of blocking proper monitoring of the deadly bird flu virus by giving too few samples to scientists, but denied a charge that his own agency was failing to share specimens.

The head of the Animal Health Service of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said countries were failing to export samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus that has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003.

Scientists say tracking genetic changes in the virus is essential, since they fear it could mutate and develop into a worldwide pandemic with the potential to kill millions of people.

Joseph Domenech of the FAO denied accusations by the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Michael Perdue, published in this week's edition of science journal Nature, that his agency was not sharing samples.

"Most probably there is more misunderstanding than anything else, but at the end of the day, it is true that the strains are not circulating," Domenech said.

"Some countries have samples, and they say they'll send them, but they haven't," he added, without naming any states.

In its report, Nature said the WHO had obtained only six human samples of the virus and no infected poultry samples in the past eight months.

The report quoted Perdue, of the WHO's flu programme, as saying that FAO "hasn't been sharing" the samples it has.

Domenech acknowledged that some Asian samples provided to domestic laboratories had explicit instructions that they not be exported without authorisation.

But he rejected the assertion made in the magazine that FAO was not sharing samples.

- REUTERS