Pepper
12-13-2004, 07:48 PM
BANGKOK: Thai officials reported two more outbreaks of bird flu in the kingdom yesterday, saying wild birds had also tested positive for the deadly virus in four provinces already listed as outbreak zones.
Infected backyard chickens were behind the two new outbreaks in the southern provinces of Pattani and Nakon Sri Thammarat, said officials, who did not indicate how many birds had succumbed to the virus which has killed 12 people in Thailand and 20 in Vietnam in the past year.
The director of Thailand’s bird flu center, Charal Trinvuthipong, said 10 wild birds had also tested positive in four northern and central provinces during tests of 68 local and migratory birds.
“We now have to check whether those birds got flu from chicken droppings or somewhere else,” Charal told reporters, adding that health officials planned to conduct another 6,000 tests.
The Thai livestock department said that since Thursday it had outbreaks in 19 of 21 affected provinces under control.
Thailand’s poultry export industry, the fourth largest in the world, had lost up to 80 billion baht ($2bn) in revenue since the start of the outbreak in late 2003, representing a 1.2 per cent loss in national earnings, according to the government.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) last month warned an influenza pandemic – most likely originating from a mutated strain of bird flu – was inevitable and would likely affect every country leaving millions dead and making more than a quarter of the world’s 6.4 billion people ill.
The WHO said such a pandemic could begin in the “next week or the next years”.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=December2004&file=World_News200412143448.xml
Infected backyard chickens were behind the two new outbreaks in the southern provinces of Pattani and Nakon Sri Thammarat, said officials, who did not indicate how many birds had succumbed to the virus which has killed 12 people in Thailand and 20 in Vietnam in the past year.
The director of Thailand’s bird flu center, Charal Trinvuthipong, said 10 wild birds had also tested positive in four northern and central provinces during tests of 68 local and migratory birds.
“We now have to check whether those birds got flu from chicken droppings or somewhere else,” Charal told reporters, adding that health officials planned to conduct another 6,000 tests.
The Thai livestock department said that since Thursday it had outbreaks in 19 of 21 affected provinces under control.
Thailand’s poultry export industry, the fourth largest in the world, had lost up to 80 billion baht ($2bn) in revenue since the start of the outbreak in late 2003, representing a 1.2 per cent loss in national earnings, according to the government.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) last month warned an influenza pandemic – most likely originating from a mutated strain of bird flu – was inevitable and would likely affect every country leaving millions dead and making more than a quarter of the world’s 6.4 billion people ill.
The WHO said such a pandemic could begin in the “next week or the next years”.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Rest+of+the+World&month=December2004&file=World_News200412143448.xml