Cuba establishes real-time bird flu detection system
submited by kickingbird at Jul, 21, 2007 9:50 AM from XinhuaNet
Special report: Global fight against bird flu
HAVANA, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Cuba has established a monitoring system to detect bird flu, the country"e;s public health ministry announced Friday.
The ministry"e;s vice minister Gonzalo Estevez told a news conference in Havana that Cuba has trained personnel to face an avian flu epidemic such as the one affecting many countries in southeast Asia.
Estevez said Cuba has invested millions of dollars in the avian flu detection and control program and it is following the worldwide evolution of the epidemic.
"The threat of a possible worldwide avian-flu epidemic as well as its social and economic impact urged all the countries to be on the alert and to draw out contingency plans to deal with an emergency situation," Estevez said.
Bird flu is strong enough to infect different mammals, including humans, and has infected 306 people around the world since 2003, killing 185 of them.
- USCDC: A(H5N1) Bird Flu Response Update 4 hours ago
- USCDC: Avian Influenza A(H5N1) U.S. Situation Update and CDC Activities 6 days ago
- USCDC: Urgent field correction notice 7 days ago
- Joint FAO/WHO/WOAH preliminary assessment of recent influenza A(H5N1) viruses 7 days ago
- Primers and probes for H5 and N1 qRT-PCR detection [CNIC] 8 days ago
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