Thais launch bird flu war

2004-10-01 13:54

Bangkok - Thailand launched its month-long war on bird flu on Friday with more than 900 000 volunteers carrying out house-to-house checks for signs of the disease, a senior health official said.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has announced a goal of eradicating the disease from Thailand by October 31 and thousands scoured outlying villages and poor areas of Bangkok for sick birds and humans.

Thailand earlier this week confirmed its first probable case of human-to-human infection of bird flu following the deaths of a mother and daughter.

At least 10 people have died in Thailand and 19 in Vietnam from bird flu during two waves of outbreaks this year that have killed millions of birds from across the region.

1918: Mutated bird flu

The two confirmed and two suspected cases within a single Thai family in the last week raised concerns that the disease had mutated into a more contagious and lethal form that could trigger a global pandemic.

A mutated bird flu outbreak was blamed for the deaths of as many as 40 million people worldwide in 1918.

Thai health officials said early indications were that the strain had not changed much and nobody outside of the family had been infected, but tests continued in United States and Thai laboratories to discover the full picture.

The probable human-to-human case prompted the Thai government to step up its fight against the disease.

Thousands of unpaid volunteers, part of a group set up 20 years ago and given some medical training, began work on Friday, according to Thawat Suntrajarn, director general of the Disease Control department.

"More than 900 000 of our volunteers, assigned to oversee some 10 households each, will go house-to-house and check the condition of both humans and poultry," he said.

A 1 000-strong team of veterinarians and epidemiologists was also being formed to move in swiftly if volunteers warned of suspect cases.

"Most of what you would like to see is being done here," said Scott Dowell, of the US Centres for Disease Control, which is examining samples from the Thai family outbreak.

"There's careful surveillance all around the original family cluster and they've identified areas where chickens are sick and dying and culled all of the poultry."

Bird flu has struck 32 of Thailand's 76 provinces since July in the second wave of cases this year and badly hit poultry sales overseas.

Thailand had been one of the world's biggest exporters before the bird flu crisis.

- AFP