Asia's battle against the bird flu virus intensified as China
halted poultry exports from three more regions with suspected
outbreaks and Vietnam imposed a ban on all transport of
chickens.
Complicating matters for China, the Ministry of Health also
reported Saturday the winter's fourth confirmed case of Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which killed nearly 800 people
worldwide last year.
The patient, a 40-year-old doctor, had already been discharged
from hospital in the southern province of Guangdong, the supposed
origin of last year's outbreak, the ministry said on its
website.
The World Health Organization had earlier urged China to learn
from last year's SARS outbreak by swiftly containing the spread of
bird flu, after authorities confirmed two more areas were affected
and announced four new suspected outbreaks, making a total of seven
hot spots.
"We have repeatedly said there is a brief window of opportunity
to act within China," said Dr Julie Hall, a Beijing-based WHO
infectious disease expert.
"This latest news strongly suggests that the window is getting
smaller with each passing day," she said in a statement.
As part of efforts to contain bird flu in China, a chicken
export ban has been widened to include the three new regions with
reported outbreaks including its most populous city, the eastern
metropolis of Shanghai.
Poultry is also being culled in the new suspected areas and
poultry workers are being quarantined, officials told AFP.
"In six to seven hours, we've killed 35,000 chickens," said Yang
Ping, an official in Anhui province where dozens of chickens died
at a farm this week.
In response to the growing crisis, Hong Kong announced it had
suspended the import of all live birds and poultry meat from the
whole of mainland China.
WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said a similar strain was found in
samples that were rechecked by a WHO-affiliated laboratory
recently.
"One of our collaborating centers received two weeks ago a
sample from a country that we are not naming that had been taken
last April," she told AFP, adding that the virus looked to be a
similar strain as H5N1.
Asia's first recent bird flu outbreak was reported in South
Korea on December 15.
More than 28 million birds have now been culled across Asia to
curb the disease which has killed 10 people in Vietnam and Thailand
and been detected in chickens in eight other countries.
Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand
and Vietnam have all reported outbreaks of H5N1 -- the deadliest
strain of the virus -- among poultry, while Taiwan and Pakistan
have reported weaker strains.
In Vietnam, where dozens of people are hospitalized with
suspected infections of the virus which has hit two thirds of its
64 provinces, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai imposed a ban on all
transport of chicken.
State media said Khai urged authorities to set up control
stations and prevent the transport of poultry from one locality to
another.
In Thailand, where Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's
administration is fending off accusations of a bird flu cover-up, a
report said that a government agency believed the virus had reached
the kingdom in November but suppressed the news for fear of
damaging the economy and causing panic.
"The mass chicken deaths in Nakhon Sawan (province) and the
bird-flu-like symptoms made us believe avian flu was already here
at that time," National Institute of Animal Health director Nimit
Traiwanatham said according to the Bangkok Post.
Thaksin said 14 million chickens have now been culled throughout
the country, where the virus has spread to 32 of its 76 provinces
including Phang Nga near the resort island of Phuket.
Seeking to reassure a public gripped by bird flu fears, he
promised to pay three million baht (76,000 dollars) to the family
of anyone who died from eating cooked chicken or eggs.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has
warned that the mass cullings it considers absolutely necessary to
contain the bird flu virus are not happening fast enough in poorer
Asian countries.
But Indonesia appeared to backtrack Friday on a planned mass
cull of chickens, with officials saying they would only carry out a
selective slaughter despite pressure to join other affected nations
in culling flocks.
The FAO said that world experts on bird flu, including
specialists from the WHO and the World Organization for Animal
Health, will meet in Rome next week to plot a strategy for
controlling the disease.
(China Daily February 1, 2004)