Fears Of China As Bird Flu Incubator
Sun Herald
Sunday February 1, 2004
CHINA admitted yesterday that the bird flu virus that has killed eight people in Asia had struck in three provinces with further cases suspected, including one in the sprawling financial capital of Shanghai.
The outbreaks of the H5N1 virus in the world's most populous country were confirmed as the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned there could be more cases than reported because of surveillance weaknesses.
Experts fear China could become a huge incubator for the virus that has hit 10 Asian countries.
China said tests confirmed the virus had infected chickens in Hubei and Hunan provinces and in the southern region of Guangxi .
Three outbreaks were suspected in the provinces of Anhui and Guangdong as well as a Shanghai suburb, the official Xinhua news agency said.
In provinces such as Guangdong where SARS first emerged people live in cramped conditions close to chickens and other farm animals, raising the possibility the virus may combine with human flu to produce a strain that could sweep through a world where people have no immunity to it.
The eight people known to have died from bird flu have caught it from infected chickens, but health officials fear that the virus might pass from person to person.
The fresh outbreaks prompted Hong Kong , just south of Guangdong, to immediately ban live bird and poultry imports from China.
Thailand, the country worst hit so far, reported its first outbreak in the south on Friday.
The virus has now spread across more than a third of Thailand but officials had earlier expressed hopes the country was winning its battle against the disease after mass slaughters of poultry.
``I'm confident the cull is nearly finished," Agriculture Minister Somsak Thepsutin told reporters. But the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said mass slaughters, which it says are the most effective way of stamping the virus out and preventing a human flu pandemic, were not happening fast enough.
© 2004 Sun Herald
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