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Bird flu has killed again in Indonesia and is picking up speed elsewhere in Asia, with fresh outbreaks in Vietnam and a new human case reported in China. The bird flu or Avian Influenza (H5N1) A virus is now rampant again. Here is a break down:
THAILAND
Thailand has suffered its first outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in six months, an Agriculture Ministry official said yesterday after a rash of outbreaks. In the north, more than 100 ducks were found dead from H5N1 on Jan. 10; further south, the disease killed several wild birds in December. A major poultry exporter, Thailand is a hot zone for the virus.
INDONESIA
The government of Jakarta is banning residents from breeding poultry in residential areas starting February 1. In a bid to stem a surge in human deaths from the H5N1 virus (bird flu), the Indonesian government will slaughter hundreds of thousands of backyard chickens. An Indonesian hospital was overwhelmed with patients suffering bird flu symptoms as the disease spread further in Vietnam and Thailand and Japan. Officials say they have prepared more hospitals to deal with bird flu cases. Four more people have died since Jan. 10, and several patients remain hospitalized. The 18-year-old son of one victim tested positive for H5N1 as well, raising fears of human-to-human transmission. Dozens of cats have also tested positive to the H5N1 virus.
VIETNAM
Seven of Vietnam’s 64 provinces have reported poultry outbreaks this year, and more than 30,000 birds have been culled. A boy in the northern province of Phichit is suspected of having contracted avian influenza had direct contact with a sick chicken before falling ill.
AFRICA
In Egypt three family members died in late December of H5N1, probably contracted from infected poultry in the household. On Jan. 12 Nigeria announced a cull of some 20,000 birds after two farms reported outbreaks.
“This is no time to relax or think we’ve dodged a bullet at all,” spokesman Dick Thompson said, speaking from WHO headquarters in Geneva. “We believe that the threat is every bit as real now as it was two or three years ago.”
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