Thai calls in troops against bird flu<\/p>\n
Agencies, Bangkok<\/p>\n
Thailand brought in troops and prisoners on Sunday to kill
\nmillions of chickens and stop the spread of highly contagious
\nbird flu, which has jumped to humans in Vietnam and Thailand and
\nnow spread to Indonesia.<\/p>\n
With most people fearing contamination, 400 soldiers were
\ndrafted to kill the hens in Suphan Buri province northwest of
\nBangkok, Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchop told
\nreporters. A hundred prisoners were also brought in.<\/p>\n
"We have had labor problems. It is difficult to find laborers
\nas after the bird flu outbreak was confirmed, many of them are
\navoiding working on farms," Newin said.<\/p>\n
All chickens in the province, a major area of production in a
\nThai industry that raises a billion chickens a year and earns
\nUS$1.5 billion in exports, will be killed.<\/p>\n
Thailand kills the hens by tying them up in sacks and burying
\nthem alive.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra tried to ease farmers fears
\non Sunday, promising them compensation, help with starting up
\nagain after the epidemic and a suspension of their debts.<\/p>\n
China was the latest of many countries to ban Thai chicken
\nimports. Last year, Beijing was widely accused of covering up an
\noutbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization (WHO) fears that if bird flu
\ncombines with human flu, a new strain could sweep through a human
\npopulation with no immunity to it in an epidemic worse than SARS.<\/p>\n
The WHO calls the near-simultaneous outbreaks in Asia
\n"historically unprecedented".<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a WHO spokesman predicted on Sunday a vaccine for
\nthe bird flu rampaging through Asia is more than six months away.<\/p>\n
Recently WHO raised hopes that a prototype bird flu vaccine
\nwould be ready in four weeks' time. But the UN health agency on
\nSunday said on its Web site its fears that the virus would mutate
\nhad come true, slowing up work on a vaccine.<\/p>\n
"I don't think we're looking at a workable vaccine within six
\nmonths. That's too late for the influenza season in Asia but it
\nwould be available," Peter Cordingley, the WHO spokesman for the
\nregion, told The Associated Press in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
Indonesia confirmed an outbreak of the disease that has
\nemerged in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia and
\nVietnam.<\/p>\n
Jakarta said on Sunday about 4.7 million chickens had died in
\nthe country since November, 60 percent from Newcastle disease,
\nharmless to humans, and 40 percent from a combination of that and
\nbird flu.<\/p>\n
Six people have died in Vietnam and two human cases have been
\nconfirmed in Thailand.<\/p>\n
"There's no denying the disease is spreading," Anton Rychener,
\nVietnam representative for the UN Food and Agriculture
\nOrganization, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Vietnam's latest known human case was an eight-year-old girl
\nin the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City.<\/p>\n
Children appear most at risk -- five of Vietnam's six dead and
\nboth Thailand's cases were children -- but why is unclear. All
\nseem to have caught it from sick chickens.<\/p>\n
Thaksin's government denies covering up bird flu by describing
\nthe outbreak in November as poultry cholera, which cannot jump to
\nhumans. The government said it knew for sure it was bird flu only
\nwhen tests confirmed it on Friday.<\/p>\n
"The government never realized it was avian influenza before
\nyesterday, but it was suspecting that it might be," chief
\ngovernment spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said.<\/p>\n
Thaksin told reporters the government took steps at the time
\nto combat bird flu, but announcing them could have caused panic.<\/p>\n
Thailand has invited Asian health and agriculture officials
\nand international agencies to discuss bird flu on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Bangkok could come in for criticism at the session, Western
\nofficials say, to match the fury of some newspapers and
\nopposition politicians.<\/p>\n
The opposition Democrats, with an eye on a general election in
\nearly 2005, have demanded his resignation. Thaksin has shrugged
\noff the calls.<\/p>\n
"The government's efforts to sweep the problem under the
\ncarpet have exploded in its face, leaving the poultry industry in
\ntatters and the very safety of the public in jeopardy," the
\nBangkok Post newspaper said in an editorial on Saturday.<\/p>",
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