Ramp Up The Bird Cull

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New Concerns Over Spread of Bird Flu

Officials Worry Slaughter of Poultry Heightens Chance of Human Infection

By Alan Sipress

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, January 27, 2004; 1:13 PM

BANGKOK, Jan. 27 -- As bird flu continued to spread in Asia, international health and agriculture officials warned Tuesday that the chief strategy for containing the disease -- the mass slaughter of chickens -- could inadvertently help the virus mutate into a form far more threatening to humans.

United Nations officials have pressed countries in the region to accelerate their culling of chickens. But they say that the required contact between poultry and the workforce that is killing them poses a risk by creating more chances for avian flu to hijack genes from ordinary human illness.

Chinese officials said Tuesday they had carried out a modest cull of poultry in the southern Guangxi region after tests on dead ducks confirmed their country had become the 10th to be infected with bird flu.

While urging Asian governments to follow strict guidelines in slaughtering poultry, including the use of extensive protective garb and disinfectant, U.N. officials acknowledged that adherence is spotty.

"There's such tremendous pressure to control the disease and slaughter as many birds as possible, some concessions are being made for the sake of speeding up the culling process," said Hans Wagner, a senior regional officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Bangkok.

In Thailand, home to the largest chicken slaughter in Asia, many of the estimated 3,000 soldiers and laborers conducting it now routinely wear masks, caps, gloves and boots. But few are supplied with the goggles that international health officials say are needed to prevent the eyes of workers from infected droplets.

About 15,000 people are involved in killing chickens in Vietnam and U.N. officials suspect that many of them have little or no protective gear because the country is so strapped for resources. "It's like sending a soldier to the front line without a helmet and a flak jacket," said Bob Dietz, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Hanoi.

The disclosure Tuesday by government officials in Laos of confirmed avian flu in chickens is particularly troubling because of the poor condition of its public health system, according to Peter Cordingley, a regional WHO spokesman based in Manila. Health officials are doubtful that Laos and other developing countries infected with bird flu, including Cambodia, Indonesia and Pakistan, have the expertise and equipment to safely contain the disease.

The current strain of avian flu, which has caused six confirmed fatalities in Vietnam and two in Thailand, can only be contracted by humans through contact with birds and their immediate environment, not from other people. But if a person with ordinary influenza also catches the highly adaptable avian flu, the two viruses can exchange genes, creating a new virus that is both lethal and highly contagious.

Health officials warn that each person who catches avian flu could become the toxic mixing bowl for an epidemic even more dangerous than SARS, which staggered Asia last year.