The bird flu crisis in Asia grew on Thursday as Thailand was said to have recorded its first human case and a warning was given that the virus could mutate into a more serious form.
Three countries announced a ban on imports of Thai chickens. The World Health Organisation said that if bird flu started spreading between humans it could cause a more serious epidemic than Sars.
An editorial in the UK medical journal the Lancet today says that standard vaccines would be useless against the virus if it started spreading.
British companies, which import about 50 000 tons of Thai chicken each year, seemed to be relaxed on Thursday about the impact that avian flu might have.
Members of the British Poultry Council emphasised that it did not represent a food safety risk, but warned that if Thailand had been wrongly denying the existence of the flu, that would seriously damage its trading with the EU.
The Food Standards Agency issued a statement saying that the outbreak in the far east was not thought to pose a food safety risk to British consumers, and that no restrictions were being imposed.
At present the avian influenza strain, known as H5N1, is not thought to be capable of passing from person to person. But there are fears that it might acquire that ability if its DNA mingled with that of a human flu virus. Such genetic ”reassortment” is a well-known feature of viruses.
The Lancet said: ”In view of the high mortality of human influenza associated with this strain, the prospect of a worldwide pandemic is frightening.”
The latest warnings came as Senator Nirun Phitakwatchara, who chairs the Thai parliament’s social development and human security committee, claimed that his country had recorded its first human case of the avian flu which has ravaged Vietnam and is sweeping through Asia.
Despite not being able to offer corroboration, the senator said that one of Thailand’s three suspected cases had tested positive.
He said those who knew about the subject were being bullied into silence. ”The case in Suphan Buri [province] has tested positive, that is for sure,” he said.
”All the academics and experts have had to shut up due to political interference. As a matter of fact, they realised that the outbreak had occurred since last November.”
He also accused the government, which denies the crisis, of a huge cover-up.
The prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, said the test results had not yet been returned, and the illnesses sweeping the country’s poultry industry were the less dangerous avian cholera and bronchitis.
He insisted that poultry products from Thailand — which is one of the world’s five biggest exporters of chicken — were safe for human consumption.
The public health minister, Sudarat Keyuraphun, said her ministry ”has no intention of covering up any bird flu case … but up until now, I insist they are only suspected cases.”
Japan, Cambodia and Laos have already banned imports of Thai chicken. The EU health commissioner, David Byrne, said he was worried enough to ask the Thai agriculture ministry for a written report. ”We are watching it closely,” he said.
Six-million Thai chickens have died or been culled to contain the problem.
Fear about bird flu mounted on Wednesday when officials in Vietnam, where five people have died from the illness, admitted that nearly 900,000 chickens possibly exposed to the virus had been sold to the public.
A World Health Organisation spokesperson in Vietnam, Bob Dietz, said on Thursday that the spread of the virus was a cause for ”growing concern”.
”The more widespread it becomes, the more chance there is that it could alter its form,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â