Vietnam reported yesterday that four additional people -- one who died -- may have caught the bird flu ravaging the region's poultry, while China barred chicken imports to keep out the virus and the World Health Organization called for "greater urgency" in fighting it.
Doctors already have confirmed that the disease killed three people in Vietnam -- with as many as 18 cases linked to the virus -- and WHO experts were meeting Vietnamese Health Ministry officials yesterday to discuss how to contain the outbreak.
PHOTO: AP
The bird flu has infected millions of chickens in Vietnam, South Korea and Japan, prompting their governments to order huge slaughters as poultry farms.
Beijing yesterday halted poultry imports from the three affected countries to China, following similar measures by its territory Hong Kong and by Cambodia earlier in the week.
"We are moving to a phase of greater urgency," said Pascale Brudon, WHO representative in Hanoi.
"There was a lot of awareness about the strong need to work quickly. Vietnamese officials are taking the matter very seriously," he said
The deadly virus -- highly contagious among chickens -- is believed to spread to humans through contact with infected birds, and there have been no reports of the disease spreading from person to person.
Officials also have said they believe there is no danger from eating properly cooked meat and eggs from infected birds.
However, regional WHO officials have warned that if human-to-human transmission occurs, it could turn avian flu into a deadlier epidemic than SARS.
Officials at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi said yesterday that a 31-year-old man from northern Thai Binh province, 100km southwest of Hanoi, died on Wednesday after contracting what doctors suspect was bird flu.
Three of his relatives were admitted to the tropical disease unit's isolation ward.
That brings the number of cases believed linked to bird flu in Vietnam to 18 -- with 13 deaths. WHO lab tests have confirmed that three of those who died had been infected with Influenza A, or the H5N1 flu strain, which has infected more than 1.4 million chickens in Vietnam.
Vietnamese officials are culling the infected birds at an estimated cost of US$2.7 million, agriculture officials said.
In Japan, officials prepared yesterday to bury 36,400 dead chickens confirmed to have the virus. The affected chickens were raised at a poultry farm in the town of Ato, about 800km southwest of Tokyo.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS