MSNBC Bird flu flies into China, kills Thai boy

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>

>Bird flu flies into China, kills Thai boy

> The bird flu rampaging through Asia has made the dreaded leap into

>China and impoverished Laos as a second Thai boy died of the disease

>on Tuesday and countries tightened defenses against a potential

>SARS-like epidemic.

>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4034127/

>

Bird flu spreads to China, officials say

Countries tighten defenses against potential epidemic

Suzanne Plunkett / AP

 

 

A dead chicken lies inside a chicken coop Tuesday in the Kaliboto

village of Blitar, Indonesia. The farm usually keeps around 5,500

chickens and has lost 3,000 in the last two weeks to bird flu.

 

Updated: 1:20 p.m. ET Jan. 27, 2004

 

BANGKOK, Thailand - The bird flu rampaging through Asia has made the

dreaded leap into China and impoverished Laos as a second Thai boy

died of the disease on Tuesday and countries tightened defenses

against a potential SARS-like epidemic.

 

The rapid spread of the virus -- which has now erupted in 10 Asian

countries and killed eight people -- prompted the World Health

Organization and two other international organizations to ask for

money and expertise to fight an all-out war against it.

 

" This is a serious global threat to human health, " said WHO chief Lee

Jong-Wook. " We must begin this hard, costly work now. "

 

Chicken imports banned

China's Xinhua news agency said bird flu had killed ducks in the

southern province of Guanxi, which neighbors Laos, where a senior Lao

Agriculture Ministry official said the disease had struck the area

around Vientiane.

 

Japan, which banned Thai chicken imports before the Bangkok

government confirmed it was fighting a major outbreak, promptly shut

its doors to chicken from China's massive farms.

 

There was no immediate confirmation from either Beijing or Vientiane

of whether they were dealing with the virulent H5N1 strain of the

virus -- which can cross the species barrier into humans and kill

them -- or a milder version, which cannot.

 

But health experts will have to deal with a problem they had hoped

not to face if it turns out Laos has the H5N1 strain which has proved

a killer in neighboring Vietnam and Thailand.

 

WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley said Laos had a " very poor public

health infrastructure. "

 

" If the virus became embedded in Laos, we'll have very serious

problems, " he said.

 

The great fear is that the H5N1 virus might mate with human influenza

and unleash a pandemic among people with no immunity to it.

 

So far, there is no evidence of it passing from human to human and

generating a new strain that could spark a pandemic.

 

But experts say that no matter how remote the possibility, they fear

it could happen and the WHO underlined that by launching its appeal

with the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World

Organization for Animal Health.

 

Some countries, in addition to banning bird imports from infected

countries, are taking other measures to try to keep out the flu,

which experts say probably is spread by wild birds.

 

Japan and Singapore banned imports of birds -- from parrots and

eagles to ostrich and exotic bird meats -- shipped from countries

reporting outbreaks.

 

Australia tightened surveillance at sea, restricted public access to

poultry farms and deployed sniffer dogs and X-ray machines at

airports to stop people from bringing in potentially tainted gourmet

food and souvenirs.

 

Singapore is shielding its bird farms with netting, doubling farm

inspections to twice a day and stepping up checks on fowl shipments

from Malaysia.

 

In Thailand, the government expanded its bird flu crisis zone to 13

of its 76 provinces from 10 and is mounting a political defense after

admitting it remained silent about its suspicions that bird flu

arrived for several weeks.

 

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he expected a meeting of

health and farm officials in Bangkok on Wednesday to help Thailand

regain international confidence.

 

" Tomorrow, everything will be transparent and we hope to regain

confidence from the meeting, " he said after the European Union, a

major customer of a Thai chicken industry which earns more than $1

billion a year in exports, said it did not trust his government.

 

EU spokeswoman Beate Gminder said the 15-member bloc would demand

independent verification of Thai measures to wipe out the disease

before it considered lifting its ban on imports of Thai chicken.

 

" Reliance on Thai assurances is not the best way forward, " she said.

 

Gminder also shot down Thaksin's assurances to Thailand's vast army

of chicken farmers, many of whom have accused him of telling the

world there was fowl cholera when they suspected bird flu, that the

crisis would be over in a month.

 

It would be at least five months before Thai poultry would be back on

EU supermarket shelves, she said.

 

'There may be many more cases'

The spread of bird flu has emerged with a rapidity the WHO calls

" historically unprecedented " and is proving difficult to stamp out

despite the slaughter of millions of chickens, as a fresh outbreak in

South Korea showed.

 

So did the announcement by WHO regional director Shigeru Omi in Hanoi

that tests had confirmed another human case of bird flu in Vietnam

and " there might be many more cases. "

 

" We don't know how this virus is spreading and so it's safe to

presume that nowhere can consider itself safe, " Cordingley said. " The

challenge is growing by the day. "

 

The deaths of the Thai boys means all but one of at least eight

confirmed bird flu victims have been children, leaving scientists

trying to figure out why the young are so vulnerable.

 

Thailand also has 10 suspected cases, of whom five have died.

 

The FAO, WHO and other expert groups say the only way to win the

battle against bird flu is to kill infected poultry and all others

within five km (three miles) of an outbreak.

 

Thailand is leading the way by slaughtering millions of chickens, but

Indonesia refused to follow, saying it didn't have the money to

compensate farmers and would choose the cheaper option of

vaccinations.

Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or

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