China's vast size and its developing disease reporting systems have made it "weak and vulnerable" against bird flu, a top Chinese official said yesterday, while Thailand reported two new suspected human cases of the deadly virus.
Some experts meeting in Rome on Asia's bird flu crisis recommended vaccinating healthy poultry as part of a broader strategy to control the disease, which has claimed 10 human lives in Vietnam and five in Thailand, as well as tens of millions of chickens in the region.
Health officials previously have said safely destroying infected birds is the best way to contain the disease. Mass slaughter and import bans have ravaged Asia's poultry industry -- some 50 million birds, mostly chickens, have been killed.
PHOTO: EPA
Vietnam's Prime Minister Phan Van Khai ordered a nationwide ban on sales of all live chickens and poultry products, state media reported yesterday.
Officials said the order was to contain the disease's spread, without elaborating. It was not clear whether authorities feared people might catch the disease by eating infected chicken meat.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said there are no indications so far that bird flu is spreading to people who eat properly cleaned and cooked poultry products. But countries worldwide, including the US on Wednesday, have slapped import bans on poultry from nations affected with bird flu.
Thailand has sought to restore confidence in its poultry industry with government giveaways of cooked chicken and eggs.
China yesterday urged caution when eating eggs but said there was no cause for serious alarm.
"There is a chance that in affected regions eggs may carry bird flu," said Jia Youling, a poultry expert with the agricultural ministry. "We suggest that when eating eggs, they be very well boiled."
No human cases have been reported in China, but by Wednesday, there were five confirmed outbreaks and 18 suspected ones in chickens, ducks and geese throughout the country, Vice Agriculture Minister Liu Jian said.
In a rare news conference, he vowed stringent measures to stop the virus before it spreads to people. Liu acknowledged that "some parts of our animal disease-prevention system are weak and vulnerable, and the public has limited knowledge about the disease and ways to prevent it."
"The poultry population in China is quite big, and production methods are quite diverse. That has brought us some difficulties in controlling this epidemic," he added.
The two new suspected cases in Thailand were a two-year-old boy from northeastern Khon Kaen province and a 67-year-old man from central Chainat province, Thai officials said. Thailand has 19 suspected cases in all, nine of whom have died.
Bird flu has now been found in 40 of Thailand's 76 provinces and authorities said yesterday that nearly 26 million chickens have been culled, making the mass slaughter all but complete in five of the provinces.
In neighboring Cambodia, the avian virus was found in two dead swans on a small farm near the capital Phnom Penh, the second time the disease has been detected near the city, the Agriculture Ministry said. The disease has not been found to have jumped to humans in Cambodia.
The WHO is working to develop a human vaccine against bird flu, but an animal vaccine against a closely related strain of the disease already exists. Some farmers have used it to protect against other forms of bird flu and experts believe it could give chickens partial protection from the deadly virus now afflicting Asia's farms.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS