The World Health Organisation (WHO) expressed concern on Thursday about the latest outbreak of bird flu in China as the ministry of agriculture revealed more than 91 000 birds had been culled.
”In any new outbreak, in any new case, any new location, it’s a concern to us, because it increases the possibility of humans at risk,” WHO spokesperson in Beijing Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said.
China on Wednesday announced its first reported outbreak of bird flu in more than two months, saying the disease has killed 2 600 birds, mostly chickens, on a farm in its northern Inner Mongolia region.
Its national bird-flu laboratory confirmed that an epidemic on a farm near the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot was the H5N1 strain, which is potentially lethal to humans.
According to China’s ministry of agriculture in a filing to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), about 91 100 birds in total have been culled as a result.
Despite the latest outbreak, Bhatiasevi said China has not reported any human cases of infection.
She said that although Beijing has strong political determination to tackle the problem, and surveillance has been enhanced during the past months, more measures need to be implemented at the local level.
”We believe there is a need for further capacity building and strengthening the surveillance system at the local level … what needs to be done is the implementation process and the surveillance to take place in the field.”
Bhatiasevi said Chinese officials have taken a number of measures to control this oubreak, including imposing a quarantine around the farm and destroying birds in the infected areas within a 3km radius.
The ministry of health has not commented on the latest outbreak and local health and agricultural officials in Inner Mongolia have refused to speak, despite a Chinese pledge this year for more transparency.
Most Chinese newspapers carried a report of the latest outbreak, but all by the official Xinhua news agency, suggesting the news is being carefully managed.
Asia has been battling bird flu since late 2003, with vaccination campaigns and massive culls of tens of millions of chickens and ducks that have devastated poultry industries, particularly in Thailand and Vietnam.
Bird flu claims Thai farmer
A Thai farmer has died from bird flu after contact with infected poultry, taking the kingdom’s death toll from the virus to 13, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Thursday.
”One man has died and the test result last night confirmed he had died of bird flu,” Thaksin said at a weekly news conference. ”The victim had contracted [the virus] from sick chickens.”
Thaksin said Bang-on Benpad (48) was a farmer who had killed and eaten sick chickens. The victim’s son has been hospitalised in Bangkok, where he is undergoing tests to determine if he also has bird flu.
Thailand has taken steps to fight bird flu, requiring farmed birds to stay in enclosures and stepping up monitoring.
But the kingdom has struggled to completely eradicate the disease, which showed up last week in wild sparrows outside Bangkok.
Outbreak in Russia
In Moscow, the Russian Federation’s agriculture ministry said the H5N1 virus — already detected in Siberia in the summer — has been discovered in the province of Tula, west of the Ural mountains, apparently borne by wild ducks.
The announcement marks the first time the virus has arrived west of the Urals in Russia. Russia has culled hundreds of thousands of fowl and imposed numerous quarantines in a bid to wipe out the virus.
In response, the European Union announced plans to extend a ban on Russian bird imports from other regions of the vast country.
”The exact scope of the decision will be finalised tomorrow [Thursday],” it said in a statement later on Wednesday.
And in Germany, authorities announced nationwide poultry quarantine measures will come into force from Saturday in response to the Russian outbreak. — AFP
