UN downplays threat of bird flu outbreaks in Asia
UN downplays threat of bird flu outbreaks in Asia
Daniel Cooney, Associated Press, Bangkok, Thailand
Simultaneous outbreaks of bird flu in Vietnam, China and Thailand are a coincidence and not likely to pose a major threat to the region, U.N. officials said on Thursday, while China announced that it had slaughtered 30,000 chickens to contain the disease in its east.
Despite the optimistic U.N. projections, officials in Vietnam, where the disease killed 16 people earlier this year, were taking no chances and said they were bracing for a possible resurgence.
Hospitals that had been designated to treat victims of the initial bird flu outbreak were ready to receive new cases, top health official Trinh Quan Huan was quoted as saying in Thanh Nien (Young People) newspaper.
Small, sporadic outbreaks have been reported in six Vietnamese provinces over the past three months, forcing the cull of 10,000 birds. But lab tests have yet to confirm the strain of the virus.
U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization representative Anton Rychener said Vietnam's government "has the situation under the control."
"I don't think we'll see a major outbreak of the sort we had earlier," he said. "The government is keenly aware and has learned its lesson and received substantial amount of assistance from the international community."
Outbreaks of bird flu earlier this year killed eight people in Thailand, as well as the 16 in Vietnam. About 100 million chickens across the region were slaughtered to halt its spread.
another FAO official, Hans Wagner, in Bangkok, said it was not clear why bird flu has resurfaced in Vietnam, China and Thailand at the same time.
"We believe this is a coincidence. We have heard of no reason why it has surfaced now," he said. "We have always said there will be new small outbreaks forthcoming... We don't expect it will continue forever, but we don't think there's a quick end to it."
China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said an outbreak of the disease in eastern Anhui province was under control and that "I don't think it is necessary for other countries to be worried about it."
Sanitation workers have completed the slaughter of nearly 30,000 poultry and have finished vaccinating all birds within a five kilometer (three mile) radius of an infected lakeside farm, said Zhu Tonggui, director of the anti-bird flu headquarters.
"I can assure you we destroyed all possible sources of contamination in the area," Zhu said in a telephone interview.
The new outbreaks in China and two Thai provinces involve the same severe bird flu strain that jumped to people earlier this year.
Two of Thailand's neighbors, Malaysia and Cambodia, said on Thursday they were heightening surveillance of poultry farms to prevent the disease from spreading.