HEALTH-ASIA: Bird Flu Set to Haunt Again After Vietnam Deaths

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Aug 18 2004 (IPS) - The recently launched network to improve surveillance of bird flu in South-east Asia faces a stern test in the wake of three recent deaths in Vietnam due to the lethal strain of the virus.

”The deaths in Vietnam will force countries that are in the network to increase their vigilance and share information to stay ahead of avian flu,” Caroline Benigno, animal health officer at the Asia-Pacific division of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said in an interview.

Keeping abreast of bird flu’s impact on people and devising a public health plan are part of the new avian influenza-monitoring network, she added.

When this initiative involving 11 Asian countries was launched in the Thai capital on Jul. 30, the spectre of bird flu had returned to haunt the region. Four Asian countries – China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand – had reported outbreaks since early July.

Yet the three deaths reported in Vietnam this month have raised the alarm about the nature of the bird flu strain that has struck chicken farms in the country’s north and south. The lethal H5N1 strain of the virus can affect humans and has the potential to create a modern day pandemic.

Vietnamese health authorities are also keeping a close watch on at least five people who are suspected of contracting the virus.

”We will be conducting tests soon to affirm if this is the H5N1 virus and to compare it with the virus strains tested before,” Peter Cordingley, spokesman for the Western Pacific division of the World Health Organisation (WHO), told IPS from Manila.

There have been no reports of bird flu infecting people in the other three Asian countries combating the current outbreak of the disease, he added.

Thailand, in fact, has given a clean bill of health to 35 people who were monitored since July for bird flu symptoms.

The recent deaths in Vietnam – including a woman and two children – brings to 26 the number of people who have died this year due to bird flu.

Vietnam was the epicentre of the virus during its outbreak at the beginning of this year, resulting in 15 deaths out of 22 infected cases in that South-east Asian country.

Thailand was the only other nation where bird flu fatalities were recorded. There were eight deaths out of 12 reported cases.

The WHO painted a grim scenario in the wake of the deaths at the beginning of the year, given the possibility of the H5N1 virus mutating into a form that could result in human-to-human transmission.

The U.N. health agency’s fear of avian flu growing into a global pandemic that could be more devastating than AIDS stemmed from humans lacking a natural response against the H5N1 virus.

Further, there was also the ease with which this lethal influenza could spread. Poultry, for instance, get infected when the virus is transmitted through the air and is released in nasal secretions and the faeces of infected birds.

At present, infections are due to people coming into direct contact with poultry ill with the H5N1 strain of the virus, states the WHO.

Human fatalities due to bird flu were first encountered in 1997, when an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu in Hong Kong infected 18 residents, killing six of them.

This month’s reports of milder strain avian flu outbreaks in South Africa are also challenging animal health experts in their monitoring of the disease globally.

Culling still remains the most effective control measure, states the Rome-based FAO.

Thailand has culled over 220,000 chickens in 23 provinces since the beginning of July. In Vietnam, over 50,000 chickens and ducks have been culled in 11 affected provinces.

However, the number of slaughtered chickens in the second outbreak is still marginal in comparison to the poultry culled early this year, when bird flu was spreading rampantly.

During the first outbreak of the disease in eight Asian countries – which included China and Indonesia – over 100 million chickens either died from bird flu or were culled.

Thailand’s poultry industry, one of the lifelines for the country’s economy, took a heavy beating. This country is the world’s fourth largest poultry exporter, with earnings last year estimated to be 1.2 billion U.S. dollars.

The second outbreak of bird flu in Thailand is not as severe as the first, Yukol Limlathong, director general of Thailand’s department of livestock development, told IPS.

There have been no new cases reported in the 22 provinces that were affected, he added. ”We have controlled the outbreak.”

According to the FAO, a country can only declare an area free of bird flu if no new infections are detected over a 21-day period.

But even after that caution, there is a requirement that farms that had infected birds be properly disinfected and subject to bio- security measures before they are stocked with new poultry, said FAO’s Benigno.

The call for bio-security measures to protect poultry includes farms being sealed from contact with migrating birds and proper monitoring of poultry movement. These have been endorsed by the new South-east Asian bird flu network.

”What is happening in Vietnam could well have been the virus from the first outbreak reappearing due to a lapse of proper efforts to disinfect the farms in the affected areas,” said Benigno.