Myanmar finds first bird flu case, culls chickens

By Darren Schuettler

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Myanmar has found the H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens in what is believed to be the secretive country’s first case of the deadly disease, but there was no sign of human infection, a U.N. official said on Monday.

"The information is there is no human case so far," said the U.N. official in Yangon, who declined to be named.

Myanmar health officials ordered surveillance to be stepped up after the outbreak in the central Mandalay region was reported to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the OIE, the Paris-based international animal health body, on Monday.

The case emerged on March 8 after 112 chickens died on a farm in Aung Myae Thar Zan township near the city of Mandalay, about 430 miles north of Yangon.

Officials destroyed a flock of 780 birds and sent samples for testing at government laboratories in Mandalay and Yangon.

"They have carried out some tests and they believe that they have identified H5N1," said Laurence Gleeson, an FAO official in Bangkok.

Dr. Tang Zhengping, the FAO representative in Yangon, said samples had been sent to laboratories in Australia and Thailand to confirm the findings.

He did not know if foreign experts would be allowed to visit the site, but he said the military government had been cooperative on bird flu issues.

Other foreign aid and humanitarian groups say their ability to operate in the former Burma has been curtailed since the purge of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt in October 2004.

"We have close cooperation. I am satisfied," Zhengping said.

LACK OF RESOURCES

The military-ruled country is seen by some international health experts as a potential black hole in the global fight against the disease, which has killed 97 people worldwide.

While neighboring China, Thailand and Laos battled the disease which swept across much of Asia in late 2003, Myanmar’s junta insisted the country was bird-flu free.

Experts feared the virus would go unreported — either through lack of surveillance or a government cover-up — long enough to mutate into a form that passes easily between humans and trigger a pandemic that could kill millions.

Then Yangon said in December it would tell the world if bird flu were detected in the country.

It has worked with U.N. agencies to step up surveillance, including monitoring of prime stopover points for wild birds which could bring the virus from neighboring countries.

A public information campaign has urged people to report suspected cases, But there was no mention of the country’s first outbreak on state-controlled radio or television on Monday.

In Yangon, business was brisk at the main poultry market as reports of the outbreak trickled out of Mandalay.

"I hope this news is wrong," said chicken seller Ko Kyaw Soe.

With help from the World Health Organization (WHO), Myanmar’s Health Ministry has drawn up a pandemic preparedness plan, but resources remain a big problem.

Years of mismanagement have crippled the economy and, despite a relatively large number of foreign-trained doctors, there is a dire lack of infrastructure in a country where military spending far outstrips that on health care.

While millions of aid dollars flow into Laos and Cambodia to fight bird flu, raising funds for Myanmar has proved harder due to its pariah status over human rights and the detention of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aid experts say sanctions and isolation will be in nobody’s interest if a pandemic breaks out in Myanmar.

"It’s a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t. But if there is serious bird flu it will affect everybody," said one official of a regional development agency.

(Additional reporting by Aung Hla Tun in YANGON)