9/1/07-9/7/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread: WHO confirms 5 human bird flu cases in Vietnam

Link to Last Weeks Thread:

HEALTH - 8/25/07-8/31/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread:Bird flu is found in Vietnam again

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=254142

Johns Hopkins on influenza:

http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/33/450/Rashid Chotani.pdf

National Avian Influenza Surveillance Information:

http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/

CDC

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/index.htm

WHO

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/index.html

CIDRAP

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/

Official U.S. Government Web site

http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

FAO

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseases-cards/special_avian.html

Public Health Agency of Canada

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/influenza/avian_qa_e.html

European Union

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/dyna/influenza/country_en.htm

The World Bank

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...68427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:1793593,00.html

WHO confirms five human bird flu cases in Vietnam​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070901/hl_nm/birdflu_vietnam_who_dc

HANOI (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed five human bird flu cases in Vietnam, four of them fatal, the U.N. agency said in a statement.

The four, including two women, died between June 21 and August 3 while a fifth person, a 29-year-old man, had recovered, it said.

All five cases, which had been confirmed earlier by Vietnam-based laboratory tests, were from the country's north. They brought the total human infections in the Southeast Asian country since 2003 to 100 with 46 fatalities.

Three of Vietnam's 64 provinces -- two in the southern Mekong delta and one in the north -- are still on the government's current bird flu watchlist, the Agriculture Ministry said on Friday.

Bird flu has infected seven people in Vietnam so far this year and officials said the H5N1 virus could return in winter, starting in November.

The H5N1 virus remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, killing millions.

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed 199 people out of 327 known cases, according to a WHO tally. Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.

W.Va. gets $620,408 to prepare for pandemic flu​

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070902/NEWS01/709020318/1001/NEWS10

The U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Mike Leavitt, announced this week that the department is making available another $75 million to states, territories and four metropolitan areas to help strengthen their capacity to respond to a pandemic influenza outbreak. West Virginia will receive an additional $620,408.

"The additional funding will provide our nation's healthcare community with a means to continue planning, training and acquiring needed equipment for an effective pandemic response," Leavitt said in a press release. "It will also help keep the momentum we have generated over the past year in this important public health area."

The supplemental funding will be used to: Establish or enhance stockpiles of medical supplies; continue development of plans for maintenance, distribution and sharing of those supplies; develop pandemic alternate care sites; and conduct medical surge exercises.

The grants supplement $430 million already announced to strengthen the ability of health care facilities to respond to bioterror attacks, infectious diseases and natural disasters that could cause mass casualties.

Thailand

Bird flu alert continues in far North​

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=121296

(BangkokPost.com) - Initial tests show that ducks and chickens that died mysteriously in Mae Hong Son province last week had not contracted the H5N1 virus, authorities have confirmed.

Over one hundred fowl in Khun Yuam district of the northern province of Mae Hong Son reportedly died last week, sparking fears that the bird flu virus may have re-emerged.

Despite reassurance from health authorities, the director of the Livestock Department, Pirom Srichant, was told that the situation will still be monitored closely for at least eight more days with more bid flu tests conducted.

"Let me stress that we are taking this seriously and that we are still awaiting official results," said Mr Pirom. "If there are traces of bird flu, we should be told."

According to a veterinarian based at the Livestock Department in Mae Hong Son province, 15 livestock officials have been dispatched to keep a close eye on the situation for the next 15 days.

Indonesia

Two infants rushed to hospital for likely bird flu​

http://www.antara.co.id/en/arc/2007/9/1/two-infants-rushed-to-hospital-for-likely-bird-flu/

Denpasar (ANTARA News) - Two infants, who have been suspected of being infected with bird flu or Avian Influenza (AI) virus, were rushed to Sanglah Hospital, Denpasar on Friday night, bringing the number of suspected bird flu patients, who have been treated at the hospital in Bali to 13 so far.

The two were identified as Ahmad Zakaria (4), a resident of western Denpasar area, and Komang Budi Prayoga (3) of Sideman, Karangasem district, Bali Province, a staff member of Sanglah Hospital said here on on Saturday.

Currently, there are five suspected bird flu patients being treated in the hospital, a doctor said.

"However, we could not confirm whether it`s bird flu or not, because their blood samples are still being checked at the laboratory," a doctor added.

Of the total 13 people having been treated in Bali so far, six were cured and had left the hospital. The other five are still being treated, and two residents died recently.

The avian flu virus broke out in Indonesian for the first time in 2005. The number of infected humans in Indonesia has reached 105 of whom 84 have died, the Indonesian Health Ministry said here recently.

The latest fatality was a 28-year-old woman, identified by her initials AS, who lived in Banjar Natu Gaing village, Tabanan district, Bali. She had tested positive for the H5Ni virus which causes bird flu, according to a press statement issued by the Health Ministry`s public communication center.

AS died at the Sanglah General Hospital in Denpasar on August 21 bringing the number of human bird flu cases in Indonesia to 105. As 84 of them had died, the case fatality rate was 80 percent, the statemnt said. (*)

Seasonal flu deaths close to ‘pandemic levels’ ​

http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishe...m=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=41558-qqqx=1.asp

By Paul Kelly

INFLUENZA experts yesterday claimed the death toll from seasonal flu is almost as high as if Ireland were in the grip of a pandemic.


Last year, about 3,500 deaths were attributed to flu or complications from the illness, yet the minimum number of people who would die in a mass outbreak is reckoned to be a mere 400 more at 3,900.

And following deaths of humans in the Far East from bird flu, the Health Service Executive (HSE) earlier this year estimated up to 58,000 people would die in Ireland if a pandemic swept the country. The “best-case scenario” was 3,917 deaths.

Professor Graeme Laver, a worldwide authority on flu, said Ireland was preoccupied with a pandemic, but seemed to ignore the fact that routine flu was killing almost as many people.

Comparing Ireland’s population to that of Sydney in his native Australia, Prof Laver said 1,000 Irish people could die in just 35 days over winter from the flu.

“I don’t think many people would realise that 1,000 Irish people could die in the space of a month this winter and the deaths would be regarded as a simple case of seasonal flu, but that’s the fact,” he said.

“Pandemic has become a buzzword and people expect there will be a lot of warning when it comes, but in the meantime seasonal influenza is killing thousands without creating a ripple.”

Prof Laver was at Dublin’s Trinity College over the weekend where he addressed 150 Irish healthcare professionals at a “flu summit”.

Honoured in Australia for his 40 years of research into influenza, he said more emphasis nationally needed to be put on seasonal flu.

Earlier this year the HSE published a dossier on a pandemic of flu, saying a mass outbreak was inevitable but difficult to predict.

Based on a six-stage World Health Organisation alert system, the planet is on the third most serious level after the discovery of a new strain of flu that has yet to spread widely.

“Pandemic publicity has made people more aware of the dangers of flu but we need to realise that flu is doing damage every year, not just in the year of pandemics,” the professor said.

He said the Irish authorities could reduce the “hidden” death toll from seasonal flu by using antiviral medicine while sufferers should go to the doctor promptly for treatment.

He said: “To do this, people must attend a GP within 24 hours of infection and preferably even sooner.”

The HSE said it would start an annual flu campaign next month to persuade vulnerable people to get vaccinated against the illness.

“We are fully preparing for the annual winter flu season,” said HSE spokesman Daniel English.

Indonesia dismisses human-to-human bird flu report​

http://africa.reuters.com/commodities/news/usnJAK43544.html?rpc=401&

Mon 3 Sep 2007, 9:51 GMT

JAKARTA, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Indonesia rejected on Monday a study by U.S. researchers that concluded that the H5N1 bird flu virus had spread from person to person during an outbreak last year, saying it was misleading.

A mathematical analysis published last week in the U.S. journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases said it found statistical evidence of human-to-human transmission in a cluster of cases on Sumatra island, where eight family members died in May 2006. Indonesia's Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the research findings had "misled the public".

"It's pure logic... If there had been human-to-human transmission, it would have already swept the country and killed thousands," Supari told a news conference.

"Our scientists have already determined that the 2006 outbreak on North Sumatra was not a case of human-to-human transmission." Researcher Ira Longini and colleagues at the Ferd Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who examined two clusters of bird flu cases, said they had developed a tool to run quick tests on disease outbreaks to see if dangerous epidemics or pandemics may be developing.

"We find statistical evidence of human-to-human transmission in Sumatra, but not in Turkey," they wrote in a report published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases on the two clusters studied.

Bird flu is endemic in bird populations in most parts of Indonesia, where millions of backyard chickens live in close proximity to people.

While it is largely an animal disease, experts fear the virus could mutate and spread from human to human, turning into pandemic that could kill millions.

Contact with sick fowl is the most common way for humans to contract the disease.

Indonesia has had 105 confirmed human cases from bird flu, out of which 84 have been fatal, the highest for any country in the world.

The popular resort island of Bali, the centre of Indonesia's tourism industry, recently saw its first confirmed human fatalities from the disease.

Supari said tests done in WHO laboratories in Atlanta on virus samples from Bali showed the virus had jumped from animal to humans.

"There is nothing to worry about, so far Atlanta has not issued any alarm," she said after the news conference.

Bali regularly hosts large international conventions and is due to hold an important U.N. climate change conference in December with about 10,000 people expected to attend.

Globally there have been 327 cases and 199 human deaths from bird flu, World Health organisation data shows.

U.N. says domestic birds mainly to blame for
spreading bird flu, not wild birds​

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-09-03-06-35-16

By MICHAEL CASEY
AP Environmental Writer

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Samples from 350,000 healthy wild birds in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas have tested negative for bird flu, offering further proof that spread of the virus is mostly contained in domesticated poultry, the United Nations said Monday.

But experts at a three-day workshop on the issue said increased and better coordinated surveillance of wild bird populations was necessary, given that individual birds from 90 species have been found to carry the deadly H5N1 virus. Most of those were either sick or dead birds.

"We know from global wildlife surveillance (that) 300,000 to 350,000 healthy, wild birds have been sampled looking for this virus. It hasn't been found," Scott Newman, the international wildlife coordinator for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said of the survey results taken between 2005 and 2007.

"We know now that we haven't found a species that even suggests that it would be a reservoir for this disease," he added.

Scientists have long feared that the spread of the virus would pick up speed with the wild birds' winter migration to Africa and the Middle East, and their spring return to Europe. But that has failed to happen.

Newman and others said the negative tests do not mean that wild birds should be dropped altogether as a possible transmission source. Instead, he said governments need to step up their surveillance of wild birds, including better testing at sites where domestic and wild birds congregate.

Some experts are calling on governments to focus their resources on containing the virus in domesticated bird populations and to not get distracted by efforts to search for it in wild birds.

"It's very easy to say our poultry system must be working well because we think wild birds are the source of our problem," said William Karesh, chief of party for the Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance.

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 199 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, and led to the slaughter of more than 200 million birds since 2003.

It is hard for humans to catch, but experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a global pandemic. To date, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.

Indonesian man hospitalized for suspected bird flu​

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6253897.html

A 33-year-old man from the Indonesian province of Riau is suspected of having bird flu and being treated at an isolated room in a local hospital, local press said Monday.

The patient was previously treated at another hospital but since his condition continued worsening, he was transferred to the Arifin Ahmad Hospital in the provincial capital of Pekanbaru that has special facilities for bird flu patients.

"The preliminary clinical diagnoses indicate that the patient has bird flu," Dr. Azizman Saad with the Arifin Ahmad Hospital was quoted by leading news website Detikcom as saying.

It is not clear if the patient has earlier contact with infected chickens, as do happened to most other bird flu patients in the country.

Bird flu has killed 84 people in Indonesia with over 100 human cases confirmed, more than any other affected countries.

Vietnam

No human-to-human cases of bird flu transmission​

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2007/09/736838/

09:14' 04/09/2007 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge - The World Health Organization (WHO) has not discovered any case of avian influenza being transmitted from one human being to another, the Preventive Medicine Department of Vietnam says.

Moreover, epidemiological studies and tests of Vietnamese people who contracted the H5N1 virus, including the seven who were recently found to have been in direct contact with sick waterfowl, show that human-to-human transmission cannot occur.

Vietnam's 100 cases of bird flu and 46 deaths from the disease were spread out among slightly more than half of the country’s 60-odd cities and provinces.

This year, in fact since the beginning of May, seven human cases have been reported in Vietnam after a hiatus of nearly two years. Four of the stricken people died.

Viet Nam imports H5N1 vaccines from China​

http://mathaba.net/news/?x=562906

Ha Noi (VNA) – Vietnamese companies imported 200 million doses of H5N1 vaccines from China in early September to prepare for this year’s second round of vaccination.

According to the Veterinary Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the vaccines will be divided between northern, central and southern regions.

As many as 63 provinces and cities nationwide have implemented the first round, with 165 million fowls vaccinated, including 87.36 million chickens and 72.82 million ducks.

Russia finds H5N1 bird flu virus at chicken farm​

http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=49372796591574

MOSCOW (Thomson Financial) - A strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus that is dangerous for humans has surfaced at a chicken farm in southern Russia, the veterinary service said.

'The H5N1 bird flu virus type A has been registered' at the farm in the village of Razdolnoye in Krasnodar region, it said in a statement.

A total of 400 chickens have died at the farm and 414 have been put down, the service said, adding that a quarantine had been imposed.

A spokesman for the veterinary service told Agence France-Presse it was 'unlikely' that the chicken meat had reached local markets as preventive measures were taken 'very quickly' after the virus was suspected.

The highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus detected at Razdolnoye is potentially dangerous for humans. Experts have warned that the virus could mutate into a strain that can be transmitted between humans.

An interesting thread:

HEALTH - U.S. Under U.N. Law/ Pandemic

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=254870

posted by Warthog

Indonesian man suspected of having bird flu​

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/05/content_6666909.htm

JAKARTA, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- A 33-year-old Indonesian man, who is being treated at a hospital in Riau province, has been suspected of having avian influenza, as an initial laboratory test showed he is positively having the disease, the Health Ministry said Wednesday.

Health authorities were waiting for the second laboratory test for confirmation that he was positive of having H5N1 virus, an official of anti-bird flu center of the ministry Joko Suyono told Xinhua.

Should the man confirmed, he would be the 105 person infected by the disease in Indonesia, which so far has 84 fatalities, making it the hardest-hit country by bird flu.

The official said that the man has historical contact with chicken before he got the germs of the disease on Aug. 25.

"He processed chicken that he bought from nearby market," said Suyono.

Three days after the man felt the germ of the disease, he was admitted in Santa Maria hospital of Pekan Baru, the capital of the province on Aug. 28 and then on Sept. 2 he was admitted to bird-flu designed hospital of Arifin Ahmad in the capital.

Experts fear that the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus could mutate in a certain level that can make them transmittable among humans that can cause a pandemic where million people can be killed.

So far, the viruses have killed globally 195 out of 322 infected people, most of them in Indonesia with 84 fatalities and 105 cases.

Huge territory, traditional way of rising chickens on back yard and lack of obedience of provincial administration in implementing the Jakarta decision to stop the virus spread, are among the obstacles in fighting the bird flu in Indonesia.

Chickens culled in southern Russia after bird flu outbreak​

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070905/76703096.html

KRASNODAR, September 5 (RIA Novosti) - More than 20,000 birds have been culled at a poultry farm in the Krasnodar Territory in an effort to prevent the bird flu virus from spreading, a local emergencies service source said Wednesday.

Local health authorities have not yet decided whether all the birds at the farm need to be slaughtered.

A spokesman for the territorial veterinary service earlier said a regional laboratory had identified the lethal H5N1 virus in the dead birds, and that measures were being taken to contain the spread.

A local prosecutor said criminal charges could be pressed against the farm's managers.

The Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations warned last month of a threat of bird flu outbreaks in the Chelyabinsk Region, in the south Urals.

So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds as the bird flu virus can only be transmitted from birds to human. Experts say it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic.

WHO Warns Bird Flu Pandemic More Likely Than Not​

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008422577

September 5, 2007 8:07 p.m. EST

Richard Bowden - AHN News Writer

Canberra, Australia (AHN) - The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that a bird flu pandemic is likely.

Head of the communicable diseases department of WHO, Dr David Heymann, said in Canberra, Australia Wednesday that his organization had evidence that the H5N1 (bird flu) virus was now communicable between human and human.

Dr Heymann said because of international travel and the short time the infection will take to travel from person to person, it was not a question of if a pandemic would occur but when.

"Because of international travel and the speed with which people might be infected, [people] in one part of the world can come to another part of the world still in the incubation period of a disease and the develop signs and symptoms of that disease once they are home," he said.

He warned health workers in contact with those who had contracted the virus saying, "Fortunately [thus far] health workers have not been infected with H5N1 from their patients, it's been much closer contact than that, it's been home care where family members may not know the means of protecting themselves as they help those who are sick," he said.

Update on Indonesian Man

Indonesian man infected by bird flu​

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90782/6256401.html

13:24, September 06, 2007

A 33-year-old Indonesian man, who was contracted by avian influenza, is in critical condition in a hospital at Riau province in Sumatra Island, the Health Ministry said Thursday.

Both of laboratory tests showed that he is positively infected by H5N1 virus, an official of the anti-bird flu center of the ministry named only Ningrum said.

"Two laboratory tests showed that the man is positive of avian influenza," Ningrum told Xinhua.

"He is in critical condition now," she said.

The confirmation has brought the total cases to 106 with 84 fatalities in the hardest-hit country.

Ningrum said that the man has historical contact with chicken before he got the germs of the disease on Aug. 25.

"He processed chicken that he bought from nearby market," said the official.

In December last year, the area, where the man lives, recorded sudden deaths of a number of chickens by bird flu, said Ningrum.

Contact with chicken is the most cause of bird flu death in Indonesia.

Three days after the man felt the germ of the disease, he was admitted in Santa Maria hospital of Pekan Baru, the capital of the province on Aug. 28 and then on Sept. 2, he was admitted to bird- flu designed hospital of Arifin Ahmad in the capital.

Experts fear that the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus could mutate in a certain level that can make them transmittable among humans that can cause a pandemic where million people can be killed.

As the number of victims of the virus keeps slowly rising in the country, the health authorities have decided to use the country's own anti-bird flu vaccine after September to stop the virus spread on human, despite the World Health Organization suggestion to stockpile the vaccines.

Huge territory, traditional way of rising chickens on back yard and lack of obedience of provincial administration in implementing the Jakarta decision to stop the virus spread, are among the obstacles in fighting the bird flu in the country.

So far, the viruses have killed globally 195 out of 323 infected people, most of them in Indonesia with 84 fatalities and 105 cases.

Zimbabwe: Doctors Warn of Wave of Influenza​

http://allafrica.com/stories/200709060074.html

6 September 2007
Posted to the web 6 September 2007

Harare

Medical doctors have warned the public to seek early treatment for a new wave of influenza that has hit the country, as it could easily develop into more serious complications such as bronchitis, pneumonia and tonsillitis.

Hundreds of Zimbabweans have been visiting health institutions complaining of severe flu over the past two weeks. According to a ZBH TV news broadcast last night, doctors had confirmed that a strong strain of flu was sweeping through the country with patients recording temperatures as high as 40 degrees Celsius.

The symptoms include splitting headaches and dry coughs similar to malaria.

A medical practitioner, Dr Rufaro Tsvarai, has warned the public not to take the flu bug lightly as it could develop into potentially fatal conditions such as bronchitis, pneumonia and tonsillitis. Dr Tsvarai said the key to a healthy body and keeping flu colds and flu at bay was regular exercise and eating healthy foods.

"People should keep warm, exercise a lot and eat a balanced diet," he said.

Indonesia reports 85th bird flu death​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070906/hl_afp/healthfluindonesia

JAKARTA (AFP) - A 33-year-old Indonesian man from Sumatra island died of bird flu on Thursday, bringing the death toll in the world's worst-affected nation to 85 and the global toll to 200, health officials said.

The plantation worker died at 2:00 pm (0700 GMT), the doctor treating him at the state general hospital in the city of Pekanbaru, Azizman Daad, told AFP.

A health ministry official earlier confirmed that the man was infected with the deadly H5N1 virus, after two tests came back positive.

H5N1 is endemic in birds across nearly all of Indonesia.

The archipelago nation has now reported 106 cases overall, including the 85 deaths.

Daad said it was not clear whether the man had come into contact with infected poultry, but he had bought two live chickens at a local market.

The bird flu virus is typically transferred from infected birds directly to humans, but scientists fear it will eventually mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, triggering a disastrous global pandemic.

The patient was taken to hospital in Pekanbaru on Saturday and transferred on Monday to the general state hospital, the facility designated by the government to treat bird flu patients in the region.

Separately, two children and an adult on the island of Bali were being treated as suspected carriers of the virus, said Putu Andrika, from the bird flu team at Sanglah general hospital in the capital Denpasar.

"They are not in critical condition," Andrika said.

Tests were being carried out to confirm whether they were infected, he added.

The island has reported two bird flu deaths in the past month, triggering fears of an impact on the tourism industry as it recovers in the wake of deadly bombings carried out by Islamic extremists in 2002 and 2005.

Prior to the latest death, the World Health Organisation had recorded a human bird flu toll of 199. Besides Indonesia, deaths occurred in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Iraq, Laos, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam.

More Bird Flu in Burma's Mon Province​

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/science/2007/09/06/burma_birdflu/

BANGKOK—A United Nations official has confirmed a fresh outbreak of avian influenza in the southern state of Mon, which borders Thailand in the south of the country.

An adviser to the Burmese government with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) told RFA's Burmese service: "We have had an outbreak in Mon state. Five hundred chickens were culled, but it is now under control."

The deadly H5N1 virus hit poultry in the Dawn Zayat quarter of Maulmein township, sources in the region said.

A second outbreak was also reported in Pa-An township in neighboring Karen State.

This time, the outbreak is different from the previous wave in Mandalay, where it happened in many farms at the same time.

Than Hla, government veterinary expert

Outbreak said under control

A veterinary team from the FAO's office in the former capital Rangoon had left together with Burmese livestock officials for the area to carry out a cull of poultry.

"Bird flu can spread in three ways—through the movement of poultry and its products, through caged birds and the wild bird trade, and through the migration of wild birds," Rangoon-based FAO expert Aung Khin said.

"But [in Burma] most cases are from the movement of poultry and its products."

Burma's secretive military regime has confirmed the outbreak in Maulmein, but so far no official announcement has been made regarding the Karen state outbreak.

There have been two outbreaks of bird flu in Mon state already this summer, which lies about 300 kms (180 miles) south of Rangoon.

Authorities in the central Burmese region of Bago announced an outbreak of H5N1 among poultry in early August, which started among backyard chicken and ducks, experts said.

Thousands of birds were culled in Letpandan township in an attempt to contain that outbreak, which was later confirmed as bird flu.

Agricultural teams were having trouble disposing of infected carcases during the rainy season, they said.

“Since it is rainy season here, we are facing a lot of trouble in burying or destroying the animals. When we dig the ground to bury them, all the water comes out and the cost of fuel is too high to burn them, but we are doing our best,” he told reporter Khin Maung Soe.

Burmese authorities culled 660,000 birds last year to contain the spread of the deadly virus, which has ripped through Asian poultry flocks since 2003 and caused 319 cases in humans, 192 of which were fatal.

Experts fear the virus could mutate to a form easily transmissible between humans, sparking a flu pandemic of massive proportions.

La Union heightens bird-flu watch​

http://www.pia.gov.ph/default.asp?m=12&fi=p070907.htm&no=42&r=&y=&mo=

By Jessie R. Valdez

San Fernando City, La Union (7 September) -- The Province of La Union has been a bird-flu free zone. To help keep the province's status of a zero case bird-flu, the La Union Provincial Veterinary Office (PVETO) is always on the alert and vigilant in its daily routine inspection, field monitoring, surveillance of the disease and conducting massive information education campaign specially those living in identified critical high risk areas, Dr. Nida N. Gapuz, Provincial Veterinary Officer said.

Gapuz added that all the 19 municipalities and one city Bird Flu Task Forces in the province are ready with their respective preparedness programs and response plans of protection, prevention, detection and management in case an outbreak will occur.

"They are expected to double their efforts, to be more vigilant and pro-active for the sustainance of the province's status especially that the month of October is a migration season for birds", Gapuz stressed.

Relative to this, Gapuz also said that their office have collected 600 blood samples to 12 identified high risk areas, while other activities are still going on such as conducting strict border control thru regular round-the-clock 24 hour checkpoint operations, personnel were deployed to conduct inventory of animal by species and the number of birds per barangay and municipality, conducts pet shop disease surveillance twice a year while disinfection activities on a year round basis to prevent local poultry to be infected with the virus.

Further, Gapuz explained that regular meetings and close coordination with partner counterparts, veterinarians in the area and poultry raisers/producers are held regularly to keep them abreast of the strict implementation of programs against bird flu.

Gapuz disclosed that there will be a simulation program on September 17 headed by the Philippine Avian Influenza Task Force (PAITF) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) at the Organization Rehabilitation Training (ORT) here where some PNP officials were invited to update us on their participation on the control and prevention of avian influenza (AI).

Meanwhile, the Arroyo government will be setting up three more AI diagnostic laboratories in the Visayas and Mindanao to oversee the country's multibillion-peso poultry industry and to continue protecting the people from the dreaded virus.

In line with this, Gapuz said a diagnostic lab was also constructed in Pampanga and this is supposed to cater Philippine animal health for the whole of Luzon. (PIA La Union)

Link to next week's thread:

HEALTH - 9/8/07-9/14/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread:Bird flu continues to spread in Germany

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=256065