Asian bird flu migrates
2004-01-26 12:04
Bangkok - The bird flu crisis tightened its grip on Asia on Monday after a six-year-old boy became Thailand's first confirmed fatality and new outbreaks were reported in Pakistan, South Korea and Laos.
The disease has already hit Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan and Vietnam, with a weaker strain detected in Taiwan.
While six people have also died from the H5N1 virus which causes bird flu in Vietnam, the outbreaks have so far mainly affected poultry and have killed or forced the slaughter of over 20 million chickens.
As Thailand said the virus had spread across a vast swathe of the kingdom, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra appealed for calm and said that countries affected by the outbreak would meet here on Wednesday for crisis talks.
"People should not panic. The disease is not easily caught by humans. Only those who live closely with chickens are at risk," he said.
Thai officials said the six-year-old boy died in hospital on Sunday and that a 10-year-old girl and a 58-year-old woman were confirmed as having the disease in addition to a seven-year-old boy diagnosed last week.
Another man suspected of having bird flu died in hospital last Friday, and 10 other suspected cases have been reported.
Thailand's bird flu epidemic has forced a cull of nearly 11 million chickens focused on two western provinces of Suphan Buri and Kanchanaburi.
Strict measures already imposed in the two worst-hit regions, including exclusion zones and a transport ban around affected farms, would be extended to the eight provinces, they said.
Amid accusations that a delay in announcing the presence of the deadly H5N1 had delayed the clean-up operation, Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said Thailand needed international help given the swift spread of the outbreak.
"We need international assistance from organisations such as the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) which has a lot of experience in dealing with animal disease," he said.
Sudarat said the government's priority now was to enforce the chicken cull, a grisly task being carried out by hundreds of soldiers and government workers who pack the chickens into bags before burying them alive.
Pakistani agricultural researchers said on Monday that a disease which has killed up to four million chickens in the country's south since November was avian influenza H-7 and H-9 - a strain of bird flu.
In Laos, a UN official said thousands of chickens have died from suspected bird flu and he urged the communist government to come clean about the outbreak to prevent human infections.
"Until Friday, the ministry of agriculture was talking about fowl cholera but now they have to admit it is bird flu," he said.
South Korea also reported a new suspected outbreak of bird flu on Monday, prompting massive quarantine efforts with an exclusion zone established around a farm south of the capital Seoul where thousands of chickens died last week.