Bird flu: Tigers to be culled
2004-10-21 09:10
Bangkok - Up to 80 tigers are to be culled at a private zoo in Thailand in a bid to end a bird flu outbreak that has already killed 30 of the big cats, officials said on Wednesday.
The latest seven died on Wednesday from the disease they are believed to have caught from eating infected raw chickens and which has spread through the zoo over the last week, according to officials.
The cull is to include 23 tigers that probably have the virus as well as others showing early signs, Charal Trinvuthipong, the head of Thailand's task force combating bird flu said.
"They are now culling as many as 80 tigers," he said.
The Si Racha Tiger Zoo in central Chonburi province, home to about 440 tigers, has been closed to the public. It has previously been criticised by conservationists and raided by the authorities after it was suspected of being a centre for the illegal tiger trade.
Officials have separated the sick tigers from the apparently healthy ones and sprayed antiseptic at the zoo to stop it spreading but they decided on a cull as the deaths continued to mount.
"We have found seven more tigers have died and preliminary laboratory test results at both the livestock development department and the veterinarian faculty at Kasetsart University found the bird flu virus," Saravudh Suvannababba, head of Thailand's bird flu prevention centre, said.
Zoo keepers have been advised to use human anti-virus drug therapy to see if it works on the tigers, which first fell ill on October 14.
Domestic and wild cats have already been documented with the virus, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) which said the latest cases did not indicate bird flu had mutated.
WHO's Thailand representative William Aldis said on Tuesday there was "no evidence yet" of transmission of bird flu between humans and cats.
Six Asian nations have reported a resurgence of the virus prompting the culling of more than 100 million birds amid fears that the disease has become endemic in the region.
Thailand late last month confirmed the country's first probable case of human-to-human infection following the deaths of a mother and daughter, taking the year's toll there to 11. At least 19 have also died in Vietnam.