Bird flu’s grip on Asia tightened on Friday with new outbreaks in China as well as Thailand where the deadly virus was also detected in a leopard, a tiger and two domestic cats.
China reported two new confirmed cases of bird flu in southwestern Yunnan province and northwestern Shaanxi province, bringing the tally to 48 outbreaks in more than half its provincial-level regions.
Thai authorities announced four new cases in two provinces, widening a major resurgence of the disease that authorities said earlier this week had sprung up again in 14 other locations where it was thought to be eradicated.
Thailand is now mopping up infections among poultry in 10 of its 76 provinces, and has shelved plans to declare itself free of the virus at the end of this month and begin rebuilding its devastated poultry industry.
Also on Friday, Thai scientists announced the deadly H5N1 strain, which has killed 22 people in Thailand and Vietnam, had been found in the cat family, raising fears the disease could be circulating among other mammals.
”This is the first time in the world that we have found bird flu in cats and tigers,” said Therapol Sirinaruemitr from Bangkok’s Kasetsart University.
”One clouded leopard has already died and one white tiger is still alive and has recovered,” he said, referring to animals kept at a private zoo east of Bangkok.
The H5N1 strain has hit eight Asian nations, with weaker varieties detected in Taiwan, Pakistan and the United States. On Thursday Canada also reported a less virulent strain in the western province of British Columbia.
The outbreak triggered bans on Canadian chicken from Japan and Hong Kong on Friday, despite Health Minister Pierre Pettigrew’s assurances that the case on an isolated farm did not pose a risk to human health.
As experts across the globe worked to find a response to the crisis, Australian scientists said they had discovered that an existing flu treatment was effective against bird flu and could be used to treat infections.
”The tests, used to monitor virus sensitivity to drugs, have shown that the drug Relenza is as effective, in laboratory experiments, against this bird flu as it is against other strains of flu that affect humans,” said Jenny McKimm-Breschkin from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.
Dhanirat Santivatr, the dean of Kasetsart’s faculty of veterinary medicine, said it was possible that other mammals had been infected with the H5N1 virus, but urged people not to panic.
”We think it is possible. We have been monitoring the situation in all animals since the outbreak, but as academics we will not say until we have reliable evidence,” he said.
Therapol said the two domestic cats found with the virus were among 15 kept at a home in Nakhon Pathom province west of Bangkok that began dying after at least one of the animals ate chicken at a farm hit by bird flu.
Tests on a third cat, which was still alive, were ongoing and researchers were also investigating whether all the animals had eaten infected chicken or had spread the disease among themselves.
Government spokesperson Jakrapob Penkair said Thailand had asked the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the world’s top watchdog for veterinary health, to verify the findings.
”The Thai government wants the OIE to cooperate in tackling this issue, as analysts have cast doubt that the virus has spread into mammals,” he told reporters.
So far all the human casualties are believed to have been infected through contact with sick birds or their secretions.
But the World Health Organisation has warned H5N1 could kill millions around the globe if it combined with a human influenza virus to create a new highly contagious strain transmissible among humans.
That prospect could be more likely if mammals like pigs are found to carry H5N1, as experts say they are an ideal ”mixing vessel” in which viruses swap genes, become more lethal or contagious and then leap to humans.
In Japan, which is also fighting a second outbreak of bird flu in its southwest, local government officials urged people not to abandon or release pet chickens in the fear they were infected.
Japan on Tuesday confirmed its second outbreak, just days before it planned to declare itself free of the disease after going 28 days from the disposal of the infected birds in the first outbreak without reporting a new case. — Sapa-AFP