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Bird flu flares in Asia, kills another person

Posted on: Thursday, 20 October 2005, 07:10 CDT

By Panarat Thepgumpanat

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Bird flu has taken another human life, officials said on Thursday -- a 48-year-old Thai man who was the 67th person known to have been killed by a virus steadily creeping into Europe and toward Africa.

All the human deaths from avian flu have so far been in Asia but the deadly H5N1 strain was detected this month in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania, sparking growing concern in Europe over a disease that could kill millions if it mutates.

France sought to reassure consumers that poultry was safe to eat as a food industry union said chicken consumption had plunged 20 percent due to bird flu fears. In Brussels, the European Union said more tests were needed to determine whether Greece had become the first EU country to be hit by the virus.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a news conference that the latest human victim of the virus had slaughtered and eaten a sick bird in Kanchanaburi province, which reported new outbreaks of avian influenza this week.

"The guy was infected with bird flu because he took a sick chicken, slaughtered it and then ate it," Thaksin said.

Eating well-cooked chicken meat is not considered by health authorities to be a risk but contact with infected chickens or ducks is a known method of transmission.

Bang-on Benpad was the first Thai killed by the disease in a year, and the first human fatality since an Indonesian woman died last month. The virus has killed at least 44 people in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, six in Indonesia and four Cambodians.

Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general at the Department of Disease Control, said the dead man's son, who had been in close contact with chickens, had so far not tested positive.

EUROPE, AFRICA

The H5N1 strain first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea and has spread through southeast Asia, which the World Health Organization says will be the most likely epicenter of any human pandemic.

Most human deaths have been linked to contact with sick birds, but experts say the virus could mutate at any time into a form that is more easily transmitted from person to person.

Migrating birds have carried the virus into Europe and Africa fears it will be next.

European authorities have tried to discourage panic.

"There is absolutely no danger from eating poultry products in France," the country's Farm Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. "The Asian (bird flu) virus is not present in France."

Britain said it planned to buy enough vaccine to protect the entire population in the event of a pandemic, while Germany said it would confine all poultry to pens to prevent contact with wild migratory birds carrying the virus from Asia.

Austria said it would ban keeping poultry outdoors.

In Albania, 3,600 chickens brought by truck from Greece were buried alive because of bird flu fears.

Sudan and Tanzania became the latest African countries to ban poultry imports, with Sudan banning all imports and Tanzania banning imports from countries where the virus has been reported. Kenya and Comoros have already taken similar steps.

But experts say migrating birds could soon bring bird flu to the freshwater ponds and lakes of East Africa's Rift Valley, where impoverished rural populations are already struggling under the twin disease burdens of AIDS and malaria.

NEW ASIAN OUTBREAKS

With countries in Europe and Africa struggling to keep the disease out, Asian nations where the virus emerged have been grappling with new outbreaks.

After a relative lull in new human and bird cases, Vietnam reported its first outbreak in poultry since July.

"We have just slaughtered and buried all the 180 ducks after tests showed they had the bird flu virus," said Nguyen Van Giam, chairman of the People's Committee in Ninh Quoi A commune.

Vietnam has been vaccinating millions of poultry nationwide to prevent outbreaks in its winter season from November to January, when the virus appears to thrive.

In China, where there have so far been no human cases, the Foreign Ministry confirmed H5N1 in 2,600 birds at a poultry farm in Inner Mongolia, but said the outbreak had been wiped out without spreading to people.

"As far as I know, there have been no cases of human infection," spokesman Kong Quan told reporters.

Aphaluck Bhatiasevi of the World Health Organization in Beijing told Reuters China had culled 91,100 birds, vaccinated 166,000 more, and imposed a 21-day quarantine on the affected area and movement controls on poultry around the country.

Taiwan's Agriculture Council said it had found infected birds in a container smuggled from China, the first case on the island since late 2003.

Chiang Hsien-Choung of Taiwan's animal health and inspection department said tests confirmed that 1,000 birds in the Panama-registered cargo seized by coastguards on October 14 were infected with H5N1. He said all the birds had been destroyed and there was little danger of them spreading the virus.

Source: REUTERS

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