Thai Boy Dies Of Bird Flu

[george]

Thai boy dies of bird flu

Human death toll now stands at 20

BANGKOK - A 13-year-old boy died of bird flu in Thailand today, an official said, bringing to 20 the human death toll from the disease that's also killed millions of chickens and ducks across Asia and is now feared to have jumped to other animals.

The boy died late at night at a hospital in the country's northeast, where he'd been in intensive care after testing positive for the avian flu virus on Thursday, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director general of the Public Health Ministry's Department of Communicable Disease Control.

The disease is now confirmed in six human deaths in Thailand and 14 in Vietnam.

The Thai boy, whose identity hasn't been released, became sick 10 days after his family's chickens started dying mysteriously, a ministry statement said earlier.

"The boy's condition got slightly better before it worsened rapidly," and he then died, Charal said, adding that the disease had harmed the victim's kidneys.

There are concerns that the bird flu virus, after ravaging poultry flocks, is now hitting other species, killing a heron in Cambodia and possibly a leopard and cranes in Thailand and pheasants in Taiwan.

A zoo in northern Thailand has isolated two healthy giant pandas over fears they may catch the disease.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization warned that the virus still has not been controlled in several Asian countries.

"Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Laos continue to report new outbreaks in poultry," FAO said.

A one-year-old girl in northeastern Thailand today became the latest person suspected of having the disease, said Dr. Thawat Sunthrajarn, deputy permanent-secretary of the Public Health Ministry.

The girl became sick with a fever and cough a week after her family's 10 chickens became sick and died, he said.

More than 80 million chickens have been slaughtered across Asia to curb bird flu's spread.

Indian authorities said they plan to hold an emergency meeting in New Delhi on Monday of health and agricultural officials from seven South Asian countries to discuss ways to prevent the spread of bird flu in the highly populous region.

In Cambodia, a grey heron that died last month at a Cambodian zoo has tested positive for the avian flu, the country's third confirmed case of the H5N1 virus.

Pin Lyvun, the director of the Phnom Tamao zoo, said so far 56 wild birds have died and some 400 parakeets have been killed at the zoo after some mysteriously dropped dead. The bird section of the zoo was closed over fears that bird flu could spread.

In Thailand, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Prapat Panyachatraksa said Friday that tests showed that a clouded leopard died of bird flu on Jan. 27 at a zoo 70 kilometres south of the capital, Bangkok.

The World Health Organization said that if confirmed it could be the first known case of the disease found in an exotic animal or a member of the cat family.

Tests showed the leopard had succumbed to bird flu, but the exact strain was still unclear, Prapat said.

A zoo official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leopard might have eaten raw chicken infected with bird flu.

Prapat also announced that tests were being carried out on more than 200 cranes that died at Bungboraphet Bird Park about 210 kilometres north of Bangkok.

At the Chiang Mai Zoo in Thailand's north, workers were trying to keep wild roosters and hens from coming close to the endangered pandas, which have been rented from China for 10 years for $250,000 US, zoo director Tanapat Pongpamorn said.

"Those chickens were born in the wild. They roam the zoo everywhere," he said. "We're doing our best."

In Taiwan, officials ordered a pet bird farm in Taiwan's southern Tainan County to kill about 300 birds, including Swinhoe's pheasants - a once-endangered indigenous bird with a short white crest and a blue head.

The culling was ordered after test results showed some of the birds were infected with H5N2, a less dangerous strain of bird flu that has not jumped to humans.

Ten governments in the region have been dealing with strains of bird flu since South Korean officials reported an outbreak in December. Some Asian countries and territories, as well as the United States, are being hit with the milder strain not thought to pose a danger to people.

WHO officials have expressed concern that China may also be suffering human cases, given the broad range of poultry infections in that sprawling country, which has confirmed avian flu in 14 of its 31 regions.

China today reported four new confirmed bird flu cases among poultry, all in the country's south.

The cases were found in the cities of Yangjiang, Maoming and Zhuhai, all in Guangdong province, and in Nanning, capital of the Guangxi region, the Agriculture Ministry said in a report carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.

--AP 2004-02-15