China reports new bird flu outbreaks

China reported its seventh and eighth bird ‘flu outbreaks in three weeks today, while Vietnam – which has suffered most of Asia’s human deaths from the virus – ordered police and the military to help fight the disease.

China reported its seventh and eighth bird ‘flu outbreaks in three weeks today, while Vietnam – which has suffered most of Asia’s human deaths from the virus – ordered police and the military to help fight the disease.

In Thailand, an 18-month-old boy became the 21st person to catch the H5N1 bird ‘flu virus, but he was recovering in a hospital, a senior health ministry official said.

North Korea issued an alert restricting access to chicken farms and urging the public to help fight bird flu.

Kuwait found the Middle East’s first cases in an imported peacock and a wild flamingo, but wasn’t sure it was the deadly H5N1 strain.

One of the new Chinese outbreaks was in Liaoning province in the north east, where officials say locally sold counterfeit vaccines might be adding to the health threat. Premier Wen Jiabao visited Liaoning this week and warned that the disease was not under control.

The outbreak, on Sunday, killed 300 chickens in Beining village near the city of Jinzhou, the agriculture ministry said in a report on the website of the Paris-based International Organisation for Animal Health. It said 2.5 million birds were destroyed to contain the outbreak.

The other outbreak, in Hubei province’s Jingshan County, killed 2,500 poultry and prompted authorities to destroy more than 31,000 birds, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The case, which reportedly occurred on November 2 and was confirmed today, was Hubei’s first in the latest series of outbreaks.

China has reported no human cases, but experts say one is inevitable with continued outbreaks in poultry.

In Vietnam, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai called on the army and police to help with anti-‘flu work as new outbreaks were reported depite mounting efforts to contain the virus, state media reported.

In a telegram sent to ministries and provincial governments, Khai urged local governments to “mobilise the armed forces, militiamen and university students”, the Pioneer newspaper reported. It did not say what they were expected to do.

The 21st case in Thailand was a boy who resided in a house in the Bangkok suburb of Minburi, where three fighting cocks and a chicken also lived, said Dr Thawat Suntarajarn, director-general of the Department of Communicable Disease Control.

All the birds died soon after the boy was taken to a hospital with ‘flu symptoms, he told The Associated Press.

Yesterday North Korea’s government issued an “emergency alert” restricting access to chicken farms and ordering the diinfection of vehicles carrying feed, state TV said.

A bird ‘flu outbreak in North Korea earlier this year forced the communist government to destroy 210,000 chickens and other poultry. No cases have been reported since then.

The disease has killed 64 people in Asia – two-thirds of them in Vietnam.

In Kuwait, a senior official said the government did not plan to cull any birds following confirmation yesterday of the country’s two cases.

“Immediate action was taken … and the situation is under control,” said Sheik Fahd Salem Al Ali Al Sabah, chairman of the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Tests found the birds were infected with the H5 ‘flu strain, but it was not clear whether it was N1 or the less-serious N2 variety, said Dr Mohammed al-Mihana of the same agency.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation said more testing of Kuwait’s bird flu cases was needed, and the UN agency offered to help send samples to an outside laboratory.

The latest case in China brought the country’s total number of outbreaks over the past month to seven.

Three of those were on farms near Jinzhou and one more near the neighbouring city of Fuxin. The first case in Jinzhou on October 26 prompted authorities to destroy six million chickens.

China earlier warned that counterfeit vaccines were being sold in Liaoning, raising the possibility that millions of chickens, ducks and other birds were not properly inoculated. China suffers from rampant counterfeiting of food and medicines.

H5N1 first appeared in Hong Kong in 1997 but was curbed when authorities destroyed all poultry in the territory. It re-emerged in December 2003, and has recently spread from Asia to Europe.

Meanwhile, WHO was sending experts to Hunan to help investigate whether bird ‘flu caused a 12-year-old girl’s death and two illnesses in an area hit by an outbreak in poultry last month.

Chinese officials earlier said those three people tested negative for the virus.

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