The Americas prepare for bird flu

Luiz Carlos Guedes Pinto, the executive secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, says that Brazil is making preparations and will be ready for the bird flu if it reaches the Americas. Pinto says that although no cases have been registered in Brazil, an interministerial group is already at work establishing check points at ports and airports and setting up action plans that will be run jointly by government officials, along with the farm and industial sectors. As part of the preparations, a Hemispheric Conference on Vigilance and Prevention of Bird Flu begins today in Brasilia at the Ministry of Foreign Relations with representatives from various multilateral organizations and all the countries in the Americas. The idea of the conference is to coordinate a hemispheric effort to deal with the problem. "We seek to set up a ring of contention and put into action measures to immediately deal with the disease if it appears", says Pinto, as published by Agência Brasil website.