Singapore says ready to tackle birdflu pandemic

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore is preparing isolation wards in hospitals and stockpiling medicines to tackle a possible outbreak of bird flu in the densely populated city-state, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said on Monday. 

He said the government had stepped up preparations by planning possible outbreak scenarios and response exercises, as well as increasing stocks of anti-viral medication. 

"We started early so that was quite helpful. As first mover, I think we have some advantage and we've built up quite a significant" stock of antiviral drugs, Khaw said in parliament. 

He said Singapore, with a population of 4.2 million, would probably have achieved its target of having enough medicines to treat one quarter of the population by sometime next year. 

"A major disease outbreak such as a flu pandemic will be very costly in terms of human lives as well as economic losses." 

The detection of the deadly strain of the bird flu virus in Turkey and Romania has compounded fears that the avian flu was spreading from Asia to Europe, triggering a surge in global demand for antiviral medication such as Tamiflu and Relenza that offer the best hope of holding a bird flu pandemic at bay. 

Tamiflu is manufactured by Swiss drug giant Roche Holdings AG and Relenza was developed by Australia's Biota Holdins and is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline Plc. 

Singapore is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and experts have warned of serious consequences in the event of human-to-human transmission. 

In June, the health ministry unveiled its plans for an outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu strain and said it could resume health screening of all visitors, as during the 2003 SARS crisis, quarantine suspected victims and deter citizens from travelling to countries which had outbreaks of bird flu. 

Bird flu has ravaged poultry in large parts of Asia since 2003, killing at least 65 people, mostly in Vietnam and Thailand. Millions of birds have been culled to stop the spread of the disease, but officials in the region have long complained of a lack of funds for testing and vaccinating poultry. 

Most of the human deaths have been linked to contact with sick birds. But the World Health Organization has said that the virus could mutate into a form that is more easily transmitted from human to human -- possibly triggering a pandemic reminiscent of the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide.