Bangkok Braces For 2nd Bird Flu Wave

[george]

1st bird flu wave over, Bangkok braces for 2nd

BANGKOK - The initial outbreak of bird flu in Thailand has waned, but a health ministry official warned on Monday that authorities must prepare for an expected second onslaught.

Bird flu has killed four children and one adult in Thailand, and is suspected of sickening 23 others, nine of whom have died. More than 26.4 million birds have been culled to control the outbreak, which has been found in chickens and other poultry in 40 of Thailand's 76 provinces.

"The first wave of bird flu outbreak has passed," said Charan Trinwuthipong, director general of the Department of Communicable Disease Control, in an apparent reference to Thailand's almost complete cull of poultry in bird flu-affected areas.

He said the Agriculture Ministry is trying to eliminate the sources spreading the disease, "but we don't know when the second wave will come, and we don't trust the situation. So the Public Health Ministry is being as careful as possible."

Officials from private hospitals in the capital, Bangkok, are being told to take measures to protect themselves from bird flu patients, even though there is no confirmation of human-to-human transmission, he said.

"We want doctors and nurses to protect themselves to the fullest extent and to treat bird flu patients in the same way they treated suspected SARS patients," said Charan. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome killed nearly 800 people worldwide last year and hurt economies across Asia.

Avian influenza has also killed at least 14 people in Vietnam and ravaged poultry farms across Asia. Governments have slaughtered more than 50 million chickens and banned poultry imports to try to contain the epidemic.

Ten Asian governments - Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam - have battled bird flu in recent weeks and officials in the United States confirmed an outbreak of a milder bird flu virus in the state of Delaware on Friday.

--AP 2004-02-10