Travellers To Laos Warned Over Bird Flu

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Travellers to Laos warned over bird flu

BANGKOK: -- The Public Health Ministry yesterday warned people travelling to Laos to stay away from poultry - particularly farms near Vientiane, where the first human case of H5N1 bird flu was reportedly found.

The travel and health advisory about the bird-flu situation in Laos was being handed out at Nong Khai immigration checkpoint, where local and foreign tourists usually cross to Vientiane, said Dr Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general of the Disease Control Department.

A large banner was also put up warning people not to touch or have close contact with poultry while in Laos, he said, adding that it was not necessary yet to impose bird-flu screening or a quarantine on Thai soil.

To comply with international health regulations, Laos would conduct standard screening procedures in which both arriving and departing travellers are given a "health warning card" so that local health authorities can keep track of their condition.

"We don't have to worry, the virus has yet to be passed from human to human," Thawat said.

Thai Public Health Minister Mongkol na Songkhla said that all hospitals - both government and private - in Nong Khai and surrounding border areas were put on high alert over the possibility that more infected patients could come from Laos.

The 15-year-old girl, who was the first Laotian confirmed to have caught bird flu, was taken by her parents to a private hospital in Nong Khai on February 17 and then transferred two days later to Nong Khai Provincial Hospital.

All hospitals were instructed to step up their screening measures for bird-flu patients, Mongkol said, adding that all of the 80 or so people - both Lao and Thai - who had been in close contact with the girl were being monitored by health authorities in both countries - and doing fine.

However, Thawat said the girl's condition was critical and her chances of surviving were slim. The girl lived on the outskirts of Vientiane, where an outbreak of the H5N1 virus in fowl was confirmed on February 7, according a joint statement by the Lao Ministry of Health and World Health Organisation.

Test results on Tuesday confirmed that the girl had bird flu.

The preliminary genetic sequencing of the H5N1 virus taken from a specimen from the girl showed no signs of a significant mutation, said Dr Paijit Warachit, director-general of the Medical Sciences Department. The full genetic study results would be ready in two weeks, he said.

-- The Nation 2007-03-01