Indonesia records new bird flu death as culling continues
Indonesia said a 27-year-old woman died of bird flu as it prepared to scour the capital for infected poultry, while Malaysia and India expanded culls of chickens to try to contain the H5N1 virus.
International health experts, meanwhile, expressed concern over the unprecedented spread of bird flu from Asia to Europe and Africa.
“We’ve never seen so many outbreaks of the same virus in so many different regions,” said WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng.
“Our concern obviously is that humans could potentially come into contact with birds infected with H5N1, which would mean populations worldwide are potentially at risk.”
The H5N1 virus has devastated poultry stocks and killed at least 92 people since 2003, mostly in Asia, and fresh outbreaks have been reported in birds in 14 countries since early February, according to the World Health Organisation.
Seeking to keep the virus from spreading to Bangladesh, authorities there increased the number of countries affected by a poultry product import ban to 26 on Wednesday, adding Germany, France, Slovenia, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Iran to their list.
International health experts say it remains difficult for humans to catch H5N1, but they fear the virus could mutate, setting off a flu pandemic.
One of the countries they are closely watching is Indonesia, which has so far counted 19 human deaths – all in the past nine months.
The high density of poultry and people make the sprawling archipelago especially vulnerable, Cheng said.
“The more chances H5N1 has to infect people, the more chances it has to evolve into a form that could spark a pandemic,” she said. “And the place we’re seeing the most human infections right now is Indonesia.”
A 27-year-old woman died on Monday in the capital Jakarta after coming into contact with sick chickens, said senior health ministry official Hariadi Wibisono.
Local tests came back positive for bird flu, and swab and blood samples for the woman have been sent to a WHO-accredited laboratory in Hong Kong for confirmation, he said.
Indonesia said it would begin a campaign on Friday to test thousands of chickens for the virus, and Malaysia expanded its bird flu watch area to Kuala Lumpur, including the landmark Petronas Twin Towers.
The country recently reported its first outbreak of the disease in more than a year.
Malaysian health officials have nearly finished slaughtering 500 chickens and birds near the infected area, just outside Kuala Lumpur, said Kamaruddin Mohamad Isa, of the Veterinary Services Department.
India, too, was expanding a massive slaughter of chickens today, as top officials struggled to reassure the public it was safe to eat poultry products.
More than half a million birds have been killed in Navapur district since the virus was found in samples from some of the 30,000 chickens that had died recently.
PMA Hakeem, an official with the federal Department of Animal Husbandry, said another 80,000 would be slaughtered to contain the virus spread.
The chickens were to have been vaccinated, “but for the sake of safety and as an abundant precaution,” they will be killed instead, he said.
Nine people with flu-like symptoms in Navapur have been admitted to hospital and tested for bird flu, causing chicken sales to drop across the country.
The army, state-owned Indian Airlines and Indian railways took chicken – an Indian staple – and eggs off their menus. Parliament too stopped serving chicken in its cafeteria, media reports said.
However, other government officials tried hard to reassure people that properly cooked chicken and eggs were safe. Top health officials ate chicken at a news conference in New Delhi.
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