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CENTRAL AMERICA PLANS FOR AVIAN FLU PANDEMIC.

Article Excerpt
Agriculture ministers of the region met in Guatemala on Oct. 28 to plan strategies to deal with an eventual outbreak of avian flu. The disease is not present in Central America at this time, at least not in its most virulent form, the H5N1 strain. Agreeing that no single country can prevent an outbreak, ministers from Belize, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Panama worked toward an integrated plan.

The ministers also sought to keep the public from panicking in light of the potential for havoc the disease represents. "We want to call on the public for calm; no country in the area has avian flu. We have quarantine [facilities] at all our borders and airports," said Alvaro Aguilar, Guatemala's agriculture minister.

Having spread now from Asia to Eastern Europe and beyond, the disease produced by H5N1 easily qualifies as a pandemic. It has evolved by mutation the capability to jump from birds to humans, and, when it does, it kills 50% of the people it infects.

The ministers want money. Costa Rica wants money to hire specialists and improve controls. El Salvador's minister wants money to vaccinate birds....