Pakistan Confirms Bird Flu; Egyptian in Hospital
By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Tuesday became the latest country to confirm bird flu in poultry while Egypt said a woman was believed to be infected with the virus, the country’s third case in less than a week.
Bird flu has spread with alarming speed in recent weeks as it marches deeper in Africa, Europe and Asia. The United States says it is likely to arrive on its shores before the end of the year.
Fears are growing the H5N1 flu virus will mutate and pass easily from one person to another but for the moment it remains hard for people to catch it from infected birds.
Egypt’s three suspected cases come from Qaloubiyah governorate, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Cairo. A man has since recovered after being administered Tamiflu, but a woman died on Friday despite receiving the drug.
The woman in the latest case had handled infected birds and had slaughtered some of them earlier this month, state media quoted Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali as saying.
Pakistan said the bird flu virus found in two poultry flocks late last month was the H5N1 strain.
But livestock Commissioner Muhammad Afzal said there had been no other cases of bird flu since the outbreak was first reported on February 27 at farms in the North West Frontier Province and there were no cases of humans being infected.
"We have conducted tests on the people who worked on both the farms and they are healthy. There is no sign of any bird flu in those people. We have already culled all chickens so there is not much more we can do," he told Reuters.
India said all four people quarantined for flu-like symptoms had tested negative for bird flu.
The four, including a doctor and a five-year-old girl, were from Jalgaon district in Maharashtra state where India’s second outbreak of H5N1 in poultry was reported last week.
Malaysia reported two more cases of bird flu on Tuesday after testing chickens in areas near the sites of previous outbreaks in central Perak state.
LACK OF FUNDING
Bird flu has killed about 100 people since 2003 with the vast majority contracting the disease through contact with infected birds, particularly their droppings.
In Geneva, a spokesman for the World Health Organization said they expected officials in Azerbaijan to confirm on Tuesday that three women who died last month had bird flu. An independent laboratory in Britain has been conducting tests on samples from the three. The WHO has earlier said initial testing was credible.
Health experts say the more the virus spreads among birds, the greater the chances of more humans becoming infected. But the battle needed urgent funding and equipment on the ground, something that was lacking in many impoverished nations.
David Nabarro, senior U.N. coordinator for avian influenza, said massive aid pledged to help poor countries tackle bird flu has not materialized and African countries and the United Nations must plug the shortfall to fund emergency plans.
Donors pledged $1.9 billion at a special conference in China in January to help developing countries strengthen health and veterinary services and boost global surveillance measures.
A senior U.N. official said on Tuesday Myanmar was struggling to contain outbreaks of bird flu and needed international help to stamp out the disease before it spread to neighboring countries.
Despite the slaughter of thousands of birds and road checkpoints to stop the movement of fowl, the disease appears to have spread beyond the 3 km (2 mile) cull zone imposed after the initial outbreaks in the Mandalay area.
"This obviously poses a threat to Thailand for the disease to come back. There is border trade," Laurence Gleeson, who heads a special animal health unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Bangkok, told Reuters.
In Pakistan, some people were philosophical about bird flu.
"Chickens have always suffered diseases. They die too. What’s the big deal?" said Munir Ahmed, a 24 year-old poultry butcher in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province.
Even as Ahmed threw the carcasses in a large plastic drum, a woman asked: "What price is your chicken?"
(For more stories, pictures and video on bird flu see: http://today.reuters.com/News/GlobalCoverage.aspx?type=globalNew
s) (Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas in Cairo, Darren Schuettler in Bangkok, Krittivas Mukherjee in Mumbai, Mark Bendeich in Kuala Lumpur and Antoine Lawson in Libreville)