EU "needs stockpile of avian flu drugs"

Austria's Health Minister, Maria Rauch-Kallat, has reop-ened the issue of creating a common stockpile of antivirals to combat avian influenza, after the project had been scrapped earlier this month, on the grounds that the risk of an outbreak in Europe was insufficient. With recent reports of avian flu gathering pace in Turkey, the possibility of the disease spreading across Europe has grown. A meeting of the European Union's health ministers is scheduled for April, at which Mrs Rauch-Kallat (as chairman, under the EU's rotating presidency) will propose the idea of a common stockpile.

EC can't coordinate pandemic response

Mrs Rauch-Kallat also believes that the stockpile of anti-virals should be handled by the World Health Organization, rather than the European Commission, on the grounds that the latter has no experience of dealing with a health crisis of the potential magnitude of bird flu. The issue is bound to raise controversy, both in terms of whether the EC or WHO should manage any stockpile, as well as the idea that national governments might have to coordinate their strategies for combatting a pandemic.