Vietnam reported yesterday that four additional people -- one who died -- may have caught the bird flu ravaging the region's poultry, while China barred chicken imports to keep out the virus and the World Health Organization called for "greater urgency" in fighting it.
Doctors already have confirmed that the disease killed three people in Vietnam -- with as many as 18 cases linked to the virus -- and WHO experts were meeting Vietnamese Health Ministry officials yesterday to discuss how to contain the outbreak.
PHOTO: AP
The bird flu has infected millions of chickens in Vietnam, South Korea and Japan, prompting their governments to order huge slaughters as poultry farms.
Beijing yesterday halted poultry imports from the three affected countries to China, following similar measures by its territory Hong Kong and by Cambodia earlier in the week.
"We are moving to a phase of greater urgency," said Pascale Brudon, WHO representative in Hanoi.
"There was a lot of awareness about the strong need to work quickly. Vietnamese officials are taking the matter very seriously," he said
The deadly virus -- highly contagious among chickens -- is believed to spread to humans through contact with infected birds, and there have been no reports of the disease spreading from person to person.
Officials also have said they believe there is no danger from eating properly cooked meat and eggs from infected birds.
However, regional WHO officials have warned that if human-to-human transmission occurs, it could turn avian flu into a deadlier epidemic than SARS.
Officials at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi said yesterday that a 31-year-old man from northern Thai Binh province, 100km southwest of Hanoi, died on Wednesday after contracting what doctors suspect was bird flu.
Three of his relatives were admitted to the tropical disease unit's isolation ward.
That brings the number of cases believed linked to bird flu in Vietnam to 18 -- with 13 deaths. WHO lab tests have confirmed that three of those who died had been infected with Influenza A, or the H5N1 flu strain, which has infected more than 1.4 million chickens in Vietnam.
Vietnamese officials are culling the infected birds at an estimated cost of US$2.7 million, agriculture officials said.
In Japan, officials prepared yesterday to bury 36,400 dead chickens confirmed to have the virus. The affected chickens were raised at a poultry farm in the town of Ato, about 800km southwest of Tokyo.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS