Bird flu has claimed its 20th fatality in Asia with the death of a 13-year-old boy in Thailand, while zoos across the region were reeling as the disease hit some exotic species after wiping out millions of chickens and ducks.
The boy died late Saturday at a hospital in the country's northeast, where he'd been in intensive care after testing positive for the avian flu virus on Thursday, said Charal Trinvuthipong, director-general of the Public Health Ministry's Department of Communicable Disease Control.
The disease is now confirmed in six human deaths in Thailand and 14 in Vietnam.
The Thai boy, whose identity hasn't been released, became sick 10 days after his family's chickens started dying mysteriously.
"The boy's condition got slightly better before it worsened rapidly," and he then died, Charal said, adding that the disease had harmed the victim's kidneys.
A 1-year-old girl from Thai-land's northeast became the latest person suspected of having the disease Saturday, a doctor said.
Indian authorities said they plan to hold an emergency meeting of health and agricultural officials from seven South Asian nations on Monday in New Delhi to draft a strategy to prevent the spread of bird flu in the highly populous region.
World Health Organization officials have expressed concern that China may also be suffering human cases given the broad range of poultry infections in that sprawling country.
China on Saturday reported four new confirmed bird flu cases among poultry, all in the country's south.
Also see story:
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