A virulent strain of bird flu has broken out again in China, officials said yesterday, as the human toll from the virus rose and Europe mulled a ban on wild bird imports to help avert a feared human pandemic.
Also in Asia, which has borne the brunt of a recent outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza, Vietnam said it had contained its first outbreak ahead of the winter.
In eastern China's Anhui Province, 2,100 geese and chickens were infected with H5N1.
The H5N1 strain has now killed at least 62 people in Asia since late 2003, with two-thirds of them in Vietnam.
The outbreak, the sixth to hit China so far this year, was detected on Oct. 20 and prompted the culling of nearly 45,000 birds, according to a Chinese agriculture ministry report made to the World Organization for Animal Health.
Yesterday, Indonesia confirmed its fourth human fatality from the virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the country's health ministry announced.
"We now have seven cases of bird flu, including four fatalities," said health ministry official Renuizar Rusin.
Another official said the victim was a 23-year-old man who died on Sept. 30 in Bogor, south of Jakarta. Test results received Monday confirmed he had H5N1 bird flu.
The announcement came less than a week after Thailand reported its first human fatality from bird flu in a year, a 48-year-old farmer who slaughtered and ate a sick chicken.
Thus far, all human bird flu victims have been in close and prolonged contact with birds carrying the virus.
But scientists fear the H5N1 strain may mutate, acquiring genes from the human influenza virus that would make it highly infectious between people, potentially killing millions worldwide.
WHO Indonesia director Georg Petersen said the latest victim had a history of contact with birds.
"As far as we know this H5N1 is circulating in birds in Indonesia. As long as that happens we expect there will be occasional infections in humans. It doesn't mean the situation has changed," he said.
Fears of a global pandemic have prompted countries around the world to consider tough measures curbing bird imports and to begin stockpiling antiviral drugs to treat a possible outbreak of human flu.
Yesterday, EU agriculture ministers were scheduled to meet in Luxembourg to discuss a proposal to ban live wild bird imports throughout the 25-nation bloc.
In Ottawa, meanwhile, delegates from 30 countries were gathered for the second day of an international conference to forge a coordinated international effort against the virus.
Global cooperation has seen even habitually secretive countries such as China become relatively open about outbreaks of bird flu and measures to contain them.
The Chinese response to the outbreak in Anhui Province won praise yesterday from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
"They report the outbreaks swiftly and the cooperation is very smooth, especially in information-sharing," FAO China representative Noureddin Mona said.
Vietnamese officials said yesterday that the country had contained an outbreak of the virus in ducks in the southern province of Dong Thap after the rest of the flock was culled.
However, the Indonesian microbiologist who first discovered the H5N1 virus in his country claimed the government covered up the initial outbreak among poultry early last year for six months.
"If action had been taken promptly, the damage wouldn't have been great and the risks to humans could have been minimized," said Chairul Nidom of the Center for Tropical Diseases at Airlangga University in Surabaya.
After its emergence in Asia in 2003, the highly pathogenic Asian strain of H5N1 spread this month, with outbreaks confirmed in Turkey, Romania, Russia and in a parrot that died in quarantine in Britain.
In Croatia, authorities confirmed swans had a bird flu virus but were awaiting tests to show whether it was the deadly H5N1 strain.
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