Indonesia said the number of its people killed by bird flu climbed to five yesterday, as the World Bank finalized plans to provide up to US$500 million to help poor countries fight the disease.
China, which has not yet recorded any human bird flu cases, mobilized its massive military to try to stamp out the H5N1 virus in poultry after thousands of birds started dropping dead in a village east of Beijing.
A 19-year-old woman from Tangerang, a town outside Jakarta, died of bird flu last month and another eight-year-old boy was sickened by the virus, said Health Ministry official Hariadi Wibisono, citing Hong Kong laboratory test results.
That brought the total number of human cases in Indonesia to nine -- five deaths and four infections -- though some health experts say the number is likely higher.
Meanwhile, the World Bank was gearing up for an international conference in Geneva this week to discuss managing bird flu outbreaks, as well as plans to cope with a possible human flu pandemic.
A funding package of US$300 million to US$500 million could be used by poorer countries to "supplement government resources, to strengthen the veterinary systems and to put in place culling and vaccine programs for animals," said Jim Adams, a bank vice president.
According to the World Health Organization, the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 62 people -- all of them in Southeast Asia -- and resulted in the deaths of more than 100 million birds since 2003.
Most of the human deaths have been linked to close contact with infected birds.
The latest Chinese outbreak -- the fourth in three weeks -- killed 8,940 chickens on Oct. 26 in Badaohao, a village in Liaoning Province, prompting authorities to destroy 369,900 other birds in the area.
Hong Kong immediately banned poultry imports from Liaoning.
In an effort to show it is harnessing all available resources, China has mobilized it military to work with local authorities and to stockpile disinfectant and medicine, a military newspaper reported yesterday.
The 2.3-million-member People's Liberation Army is to make "urgent plans" with health and agriculture agencies to help stop possible outbreaks, the Liberation Army Daily said.
"All levels must clearly understand the epidemic situation and absolutely cannot lower their guard or be careless," the order said, according to the newspaper.
In Vietnam -- where most of the human deaths have occurred -- more than 3,000 poultry died or were culled this week in three villages in Bac Giang province about 60km northeast of Hanoi, said provincial vice chairman Nguyen Dang Khoa.
Transporting poultry to or from the three villages was banned, and the towns and those around them have been disinfected and remaining poultry vaccinated, he said.
In one of the villages, Van Trung, about a dozen local officials on Friday went from house to house, beating to death any poultry they found.
In Japan, authorities said antibody testing had found that 80 chickens at a farm in Ibaraki prefecture had been exposed to a virus of the H5 strain, but survived. Nevertheless, 180,000 of the 300,000 birds at the farm would be culled, officials said.
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