After killing millions of chickens and ducks across Asia, bird flu is feared to have jumped to more exotic species, possibly killing a leopard and cranes in Thailand and pheasants in Taiwan.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that the disease — which has killed 14 people in Vietnam and five in Thailand — still has not been controlled in several Asian countries.
”Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Laos continue to report new outbreaks in poultry,” the FAO said.
About 80-million chickens have been slaughtered across Asia, excluding China, to curb bird flu’s spread, it said.
In Thailand, Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Prapat Panyachatraksa said on Friday that tests showed that a clouded leopard died of bird flu on January 27 at Khao Khiew Zoo in Chonburi province, 70km south of Bangkok.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) 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.
Two separate tests showed the leopard had succumbed to bird flu, but the exact strain was unclear, Prapat said. Officials were awaiting the results of a third test.
A zoo official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the leopard might have eaten 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 in Nakhon Sawan province, 210km north of Bangkok.
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, as well as the United States, are being hit with a milder bird flu strain not thought to pose a danger to people.
The FAO said governments in poorer countries have responded slowly to fight bird flu because of a lack of resources, such as qualified veterinary staff.
”In addition, the urgently required administrative and political structures to run an effective emergency campaign are often not yet in place,” it said.
On Friday, the World Bank said it would give Vietnam a $10-million loan to help its poultry industry, which has been ravaged by the flu.
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’s Agriculture Ministry reported on Friday confirmed bird-flu outbreaks in fowl in seven more locations, including Shanghai.
The cases were confirmed in Nanhui, an eastern suburb of Shanghai; in two places in southwestern China’s Yunnan province; in the northeastern city of Tianjin; and in three locations in Guangdong province.
Health experts say that eating properly cooked poultry meat and eggs poses no danger, because heat kills the virus.
Japan, which itself has been struck by an outbreak, last month banned all poultry products from Thailand and China — two of its biggest suppliers — because of outbreaks in those countries.
But on Friday, Tokyo said it was would resume imports of heat-treated chicken products from China if its plants meet Japanese hygiene standards, a day after doing the same for Thailand. — Sapa-AP