The World Health Organization (WHO) is investigating whether bird flu in Vietnam has jumped to humans after the deaths of 12 people.
The biggest concern was the bird flu virus latching on to the human influenza virus, a WHO spokesman in Manila said on Monday, who warned of dire consequences if this occurred.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"There is no evidence at the moment that this is the H5N1 virus, which is the avian virus," Peter Cordingley, a spokesman for the WHO's Western Pacific headquarters in Manila, said.
Cordingley said of 14 people who fell ill with influenza in Hanoi and surrounding provinces, 11 of the 13 children and the mother of one of the children had died.
The H5N1 virus spreads rapidly among poultry but rarely infects humans. It did so in Hong Kong in 1997 when an outbreak of bird flu killed six people and again last year when it infected a father and son.
"The point of concern is not so much that those tests will show that those kids have got this virus. We're worried that the virus will latch on to a normal human influenza virus, which is extremely contagious, and then we'll have a big problem."
Meanwhile, in South Korea, hopes that bird flu may be subsiding have been dashed, after officials confirmed yesterday the first new case in more than a week.
The Agriculture Ministry confirmed in a statement the latest outbreak in South Korea was at a chicken farm in Yangsan, about 380km southeast of the capital Seoul.
Authorities had completed the slaughter of 18,000 birds at the farm in Yangsan that had not died from the disease, officials said by telephone, adding that roughly 900,000 more chickens and ducks at around 30 farms within a 3km radius of the farm would be killed.
About 1.8 million birds have been culled in South Korea since the start of the outbreak was first reported on Dec. 10, the agriculture ministry said. Sixteen outbreaks have been reported so far across the country, including yesterday's case.
The outbreak has prompted South Korean consumers to stop eating poultry and exports of chickens and chicken meat to Japan, Hong Kong and China have been halted.
In Thailand, a Thai livestock official yesterday denied allegations that the government had been trying to cover up the bird flu outbreak.
Veterinarian Nirundorn Aungtragoolsuk, acting director of the Livestock Disease Control Bureau, said lab tests had shown that some chickens at local farms had suffered from a bacterial infection called fowl cholera, but that there was no evidence of bird flu.
He said the Livestock Department had issued a statement on Dec. 16 saying some poultry farms had been affected by the illness.
The department also ordered the slaughter of 14,000 chickens in Chachoengsao province and 20,000 in Ang Thong province and prohibited people from moving the dead birds from those areas.
"Many times, chicken farmers face outbreaks of a similar disease [to bird flu] because of poor hygiene at their farms," Nirundorn said.
The Bangkok Post newspaper yesterday quoted several poultry farmers as saying the Livestock Department was trying to hide the outbreak.
They said the government wants to protect the country's poultry exports.
"This is the most horrible disease we've ever seen. It attacks our farms very fast. We are shocked and have no idea how to handle it," said one farmer, who claims he lost 10,000 chickens to the disease at his farm in Nakhon Pathom province, about 50km west of Bangkok.
The chickens that died had symptoms similar to those of avian influenza, or bird flu, he was quoted as saying on condition of anonymity.
However, a staff member of the Thai Poultry Farmers Promotion Association said on condition of anonymity that they were unaware of the complaints.
A local farm organization representative said they had also not heard about the complaints.
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
RSS