‘Commission slow to hand out bird-flu cash’

Health policy experts have accused the European Commission of taking too long to provide non-EU countries with funds to fight potentially deadly avian influenza.

Outbreaks of bird flu in the Far East, the Middle East and India led to the European Commission promising 100 million euro in aid for non-EU countries at an international pledging conference in Beijing this January.

But money only became available for bird flu programmes this summer, a delay that the Commission's critics say could cause chaos.

"The idea of the pledging conference was to fight avian flu quickly and where it started: outside Europe," said Anne Ho‘l of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA).

"Since then avian flu has expanded more and more; we had the first case in Spain this month. The longer we wait the more countries will be affected and the more money will be needed."

A World Health Organisation (WHO) source said his organisation had seen less than a third of 1.9 billion euro promised at the Beijing conference by international donors, including the European Commission.

"We have not exactly been inundated with funds, let's put it that way," he said. "We need the money now, not soon. Africa was affected with bird flu after the Beijing conference, our work has only increased since the start of the year."

But the Commission said the criticisms were unjustified, since countries had had to hand in their reports on the situation before money could be allocated.

The Commission pointed out that it had also been working with the World Bank to create a new trust fund, the Avian and Human Influenza Facility (AHI), to make sure that the money could be quickly and effectively distributed once reports were in.

The AHI went into action in early June this year, according to the Commission, with 50m euro of Commission money. Of this, 30m euro is earmarked for Asia, with the rest divided between Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Mediterranean.

The Commission said almost half of the total would be handed out this month, with the rest distributed before the end of the year. On 7 July it approved sending another 30m euro for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to a second Wold Bank trust fund.

The remaining 20m euro will be spent on bird flu prevention research, with the focus on non-EU countries. R&D proposals are currently being evaluated by the Commission research department. A spokes-woman said the projects would be up and running by the end of the year.

Health policy experts have accused the European Commission of taking too long to provide non-EU countries with funds to fight potentially deadly avian influenza.