Bird flu maintained its relentless march across the globe yesterday with Malaysia and Hungary the latest countries to report outbreaks, while in India hundreds of people turned up at medical camps in flu-hit areas.
At least 15 nations have reported outbreaks in birds this month, an indication that the virus, which has killed more than 90 people, is spreading faster.
Migratory birds are thought to be at least one way the disease is being carried and more than 30 countries have now reported cases since 2003, seven of them recording human infections.
Bosnia confirmed its first cases of bird flu on Monday, while Malaysia said the H5N1 avian flu virus killed chickens near the capital. Tests also confirmed the virus in three dead swans found in Hungary last week, the government said yesterday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that mutations in the H5N1 virus are seemingly making it more deadly in chickens and more resistant in the environment, but without yet increasing the threat to humans.
"Human infections remain a rare event. The virus does not spread easily from birds to humans or readily from person to person," the WHO said on its Web site.
But scientists say the virus has already developed the ability to infect more species of animals and the fear is H5N1 could eventually mutate to pass easily from human to human.
Health workers in western India expanded a massive slaughter of chickens yesterday to contain the virus, while Malaysia began killing birds after reporting its first case of the disease in more than a year.
Indonesia, meanwhile, geared up to scour its capital to test thousands of chickens for the illness, and Hong Kong's government said a dead magpie found near an urban flower market was infected with the H5N1 strain.
More than half a million birds have been killed in India's Navapur district since the virus was found in samples from some of the 30,000 chickens that had died recently. The government had planned to cull a total of 700,000 birds within a 3km radius of the outbreak in Maharashtra state.
Yesterday, Indian authorities said they planned to widen the culling area.
"We don't want to take any chances," said Anees Ahmed, a Maharashtra state official.
The expanded radius of the cull was expected to lead to the slaughter of about 100,000 more birds, said a state official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to release the information.
Local farmers were distraught over their losses and wondering how they would survive.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
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