By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON, April 27 (Reuters) - The World Bank is ready to increase funding to Mexico and any other developing country around the world to deal with swine flu, a senior Bank official said on Monday.
In an interview with Reuters, Keith Hansen, health sector manager for Latin America and the Caribbean, said experience with previous illnesses shows that countries should act as early as possible to prepare for the flu's possible spread.
"We put in place a funding facility for avian flu a few years ago and it is broadly defined so it can encompass this flu, and if need be the bank is fully prepared to add money to that facility for Mexico and for any other countries that may be affected," Hansen said.
The virus has killed up to 149 people in Mexico and infected dozens in the United States, Canada and Europe. The World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert level to phase 4, indicating a significant increased risk of a pandemic, a global outbreak of a serious disease.
Still, Hansen said it was impossible to know how the situation may evolve. The outbreak comes on top of fear and anxiety over a global recession and financial crisis.
He said international agencies, led by the World Health Organization, were coordinating through daily tele-conferences.
"Epidemics are a little like earthquakes; they are very hard to foresee and their scale is difficult to know until we have more information from the technical experts that are working on this around the clock," he said in an interview.
The World Bank on Sunday announced $25 million in immediate funding for Mexico and $180 million in future loans.
Hansen said Mexico had so far acted "prudently" to address the outbreak and to try minimize the economic damage.
"As yet the epidemic is very limited in time and scope," Hansen said. "The economic impact will depend entirely on the scope, and the nature and duration of the epidemic if it grows and evolves," he added.
He said the World Bank and its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, were currently looking at what the channels of economic impact might be.
"One good lesson is if the episode is short and not too widespread, the economic impact is usually fleeting, there is often a rebound effect afterwards," Hansen said.
"We don't want to suggest something terrible is about to happen because we don't know, but obviously an impact on top of a global crisis is a cause for concern. Even ahead of that is concern for the health and welfare of the people who are in the center of this," he added.
BUDGET STRAINS
He said once the virus spread it was inevitable that the poor would suffer the most with little access to medical care. Even with access, they may be reluctant to seek treatment or diagnosis because they may be left with high medical bills.
Hansen said there was concern the flu outbreak could further strain health budgets in developing countries, where there are already signs of cutbacks in treatment for HIV/AIDS.
Hansen said it was important that government responses be based on technical information and scientific evidence, and not rumors.
"Prevention is everything in an epidemic. Once it spreads it is very difficult to contain and so all the measures that are most effective happen upfront and many countries have these in place," he said.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)