The human toll from bird flu reached 31 yesterday when Thai-land confirmed a nine-year-old girl died from the disease, while Indonesia announced it was among the countries still struggling with Asia's continuing outbreaks.
In Malaysia, which escaped the first wave of the bird flu crisis early this year but reported an outbreak last month, authorities in northern Kelantan state said they were having trouble chasing down chickens for culling at farms where the birds are often allowed to roam free, perching on trees or creeping into bushes.
Kanda Srilueng-On, aged nine, died overnight at a hospital in Phetchabun province only hours after tests confirmed she was stricken with the disease, the Thai Health Ministry said yesterday. She was believed to have caught the disease from infected chickens, and had helped pluck feathers from slaughtered chickens that her family had raised.
The girl's death brought to 11 the number of human deaths in Thailand, which went on high alert last week after reporting its first probable case of human-to-human transmission of the disease. In Vietnam, the only other country to suffer human cases of the virus, 20 people have died.
In addition, more than 100 million chickens and poultry have been killed by the disease or been culled in efforts to curb its spread since the bird flu crisis erupted through much of Asia early this year.
Indonesian officials said yesterday that the virus had again resurfaced in Java, killing 350 chickens and prompting officials to urge further vaccinations. Tests on dead birds showed they had the dangerous H5N1 strain, livestock officials were quoted in the Jakarta Post as saying.
World health officials worry that the longer it takes to contain outbreaks in poultry, the more chances the virus will have to jump to humans and mix with a human influenza virus to form a version that easily passes from person-to-person. However, health experts say there's no evidence to suggest that has happened yet, even in the case of probable human-to-human transmission reported in Thailand.
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