Bird Flu Recurs In Thailand

[Spellbound]

2/16/2004 12:00:21 PM ( Source: Reuters)

Bird flu recurs in Thailand and hits Tibet

By Vissuta Pothong

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's hopes of following Japan in declaring a swift end to its huge bird flu crisis have been dashed after the virus which has killed 20 Asians reappeared in eight areas where it had been thought vanquished.

Japan planned to declare an end to its sole outbreak this week if no new cases were reported, officials said, and Thailand had hoped to follow suit by the end of this month despite warnings from U.N. health experts that it was being premature.

But Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchop told reporters the H5N1 virus had been found in fighting cocks in areas of eight provinces where mass slaughters were carried out and in ducks in one not struck by the first wave of infections.

"We have found 14 spots in nine provinces," he said.

The infected fighting cocks -- valuable birds some owners were accused of hiding -- were found in former "red zones" where the government had ordered the slaughter of poultry within a five km (three-mile) radius of an outbreak, he said.

Thailand, where six people have died after catching the highly infectious virus from sick poultry, had been warned by the World Health Organisation that it was in too much of a rush to declare the crisis ended.

It said some countries appeared to be putting business ahead of human health, a charge Thailand said could not be levelled at it despite having the world's fourth largest chicken export industry which earns more than $1 billion a year.

And, as Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra assured worried Thais the crisis would be declared over soon, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation emphasised how difficult it was to stamp out the virus, thought to be spread by migrating birds.

It could take months, even a couple of years, to be sure the H5N1 virus was no longer a threat, the FAO said.

TWO NEW CASES

Thailand had promised to be meticulous in ensuring the eradication of the virus and it was a second set of tests in former "red zones" which discovered the bug was still present.

It has slaughtered 30 million birds, about the same number as Vietnam, where at least 14 people have died of bird flu and which reported two more cases of the disease.

A 15-year-old boy tested positive for the disease and was being treated at a hospital in the northern province of Thanh Hoa while a 22-year-old man was confirmed as having the disease

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