Health

Indonesia confirms 40th bird flu death

AFP - Jakarta, Indonesia is on track to record the world's highest number of fatalities from bird flu, after health officials confirmed Tuesday that a five-year-old boy was the country's 40th victim of the virus.

The world's fourth most populous nation is trailing only Vietnam, which has reported 42 deaths, none of which have occurred this year.

Tests for the H5N1 virus on the latest victim carried out by a World Health Organisation-linked laboratory came back positive, senior health ministry official Hariyadi Wibisono told AFP.

"Results from tests on a five-year-old boy from Tulungagung, East Java, have been confirmed by the WHO-affiliated laboratory in Hong Kong," he said, adding that the boy had died after eight days of hospital treatment.

"Reports suggest that he had been in contact with dead chickens," he said.

He added that relatives of the boy were under supervision and "so far there have not been any reports of new cases" in the area where the family lives.

The archipelago nation, which has been accused of acting too slowly to curb the spread of the virus, has also reported the world's first lab-confirmed cluster of human-to-human transmission of bird flu.

The viral strain that caused the cluster of seven deaths in May however was a genetic "dead end" that could not have caused a pandemic, the World Health Organisation has said.

H5N1 circulates among wild birds and poultry, which can then transmit it to humans. In its present form it is hard to pass from human to human but the cluster raised fears that the virus had mutated into a contagious as well as lethal form.

Wibisono stressed that "periodic and disciplined supervision of poultry populations and sanitation conditions at farms" needed to be prioritised in the nation's fight against the virus.

"As long as problems keep occurring on the animal side, then problems on the human side will never cease. The agriculture ministry has some programs already in place but we need to work better together," he said.

"It does not have to be via mass or selective culling, since there are other, more effective means -- responsible supervision of poultry populations at backyard and mass production farms," he said.

Indonesia convened a three-day gathering of experts hosted by the WHO and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation that recommended the government urgently implement an already drafted national plan to control the virus.

Critics have charged that Indonesia, already accused of initially covering up outbreaks, has been quick to hold talks but slow on action, failing to implement for instance the widespread culls held in other nations.

But the World Bank said last month that it was concerned about a shortfall in funding needed to combat the virus, noting that Jakarta had estimated it needed 900 million dollars to launch an effective campaign against the virus, but donors had pledged only 100 million dollars.

South Africa pledges a million to Global Fund

JOHANNESBURG, (AFP) South Africa on Tuesday promised a million rand (142,000 dollars, 111,000 euro) to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in order to help make up a funding shortfall.

To meet current commitments and expected new proposals for next year, the fund needed 5.5 billion dollars more. "We ... remain committed to supporting the Global Fund consistent with our potential and ability to do so. We have so far pledged 10 million dollars over a period of five years from 2003 to 2007," South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said.

"As a gesture of this commitment, I wish to announce that the South African Government will pledge an additional one million South African rand in this current financial year," she said at a donors' meeting.

The fund welcomed the pledge, saying it would inspire other donors to follow suit. Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden told AFP by telephone from Durban that it was a "very positive gesture on the part of the health minister" and "something donors will really take note of." Liden said the fund was not expecting any further pledges over the next few days.

"Several donors are saying 'watch us over the next few months'," he added, saying he expected pledges to be made at this month's G8 meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, the Toronto AIDS meeting in August and at the UN's General Assembly meeting in September.

The Global Fund was meeting in Durban to mull its future strategy and lay the groundwork for future donations.

Liden said that about 400 delegates from 115 countries who attended responded well to calls for suggestions. "They did so with a vengeance. Obviously, it wasn't stuff that will change the world overnight, but to us it was valuable." He said the suggestions would now be consolidated and be put before the fund's board in October.

Australian scientists say 'molecular assassin' drug in development

SYDNEY, (AFP) Australian scientists Tuesday said they were hoping to soon begin human trials of a new class of experimental drug which would act as a "molecular assassin" of disease-causing genes.

Researchers at Sydney's University of New South Wales said the smart drug had the potential to treat a range of illnesses including cancer, heart disease and inflammatory illnesses such as arthritis and eye disease.

Professor Levon Khachigian said the drug, Dz13, was revolutionary in that it was made of genetic DNA or RNA material and was designed to target and destroy disease-causing genes known as mass-regulators. RNA is an intermediary stage between DNA and protein.

"Our assassin is a potential new class of drug," Khachigian said. "This is made of DNA or RNA and serves as a magic bullet which seeks out and destroys bad genes.

"This is kind of like a bull's eye technology. The desired effect of it is to hit the core of the mechanism of disease which is to go after the godfather (mass regulator)."

Khachigian said one of the benefits of the drug was that it could be used very early in the disease process, and that it could be used to treat more than one type of illness.

"Because we are focusing on the godfather genes we should be able to use this technology in more than one disease type," he told AFP.

"It's not just eye disease, it's the narrowing of the arteries, it's the growth of solid tumours, it's arthritis," he said.

Khachigian said researchers hoped to start trials on humans early next year with skin cancers likely to be the first disease targeted. "It hasn't been yet tested in humans and that's what we have to be very careful about," he said.

Khachigian said there were still many unknowns about the effectiveness of the drug, despite some pleasing results from animal trials.