The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu will take several years to contain, the World Health Organization warned yesterday, adding that claims in China that the virus was found in pigs is a worrying new development.
The H5N1 virus has killed 27 people in Asia. A recent outbreak of bird flu in Malaysia -- the first case in this Southeast Asian country -- and flare-ups in Thailand and Vietnam, plus recent claims by Chinese researchers that pigs have the virus indicate that the disease may be entrenched and adapting in parts of Asia.
The discovery in pigs, which are genetically similar to humans, intensifies fears that it could mutate into a version that could lead to human-to-human infections. However, it remains unclear whether the pigs were actually infected with H5N1 or simply had traces on their snouts from snuffling around chicken runs.
Pigs could conceivably become a new host for the virus to mutate, said Shigeru Omi, WHO director for the Western Pacific.
"We don't know how wide this virus is spreading among pigs. Is it only several pigs or many pigs?" Omi told a news conference. "This is a new finding, which we are following up very carefully, but it does not mean that it will immediately cause a pandemic."
Omi said the disease will keep popping up because it "is circulating more widely than we expected among poultry."
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
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