Thailand confirms another Bird Flu Victim

A six-year-old Thai boy has died from bird flu, making him Thailand’s fifth confirmed fatality from the disease, Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan reported on Wednesday.

A six-year-old Thai boy has died from bird flu, making him Thailand’s fifth confirmed fatality from the disease, Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan reported on Wednesday. “Nittikorn Chidnok from Kanchanaburi province, who had already died (on Monday), became the country’s fifth confirmed case,” Mr Sudarat told reporters.The boy had been listed as one of Thailand’s 10 suspected bird flu fatalities but extensive laboratory tests confirmed he had been stricken by the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the minister said. A sick five-month-old baby girl from Chainat province in central Thailand was also removed from the suspect list, she said. As well as the five confirmed deaths, there are now 17 suspected cases of bird flu infections in Thailand, of which nine have died, including a four-year-old boy suspected of having the disease who passed away on Tuesday. All five of Thailand’s confirmed bird flu cases have been fatal. The virus has now been detected in poultry in half of Thailand’s 76 provinces, and to fight the disease 24.8 million chickens have been culled nationwide. The mass slaughters were continuing on Wednesday in seven provinces after being completed in the other 31 provinces where H5N1 has been detected. The four other people confirmed to have died from the disease are two boys, both six years old who died on January 25 and 27, a 58-year-old woman who died on January 28, and a seven-year-old boy who died on Tuesday. All are from Thailand’s rural central provinces, as was Wednesday’s fatality. It is believed that the fashion in which rural Asiatic people live is fostering the spread of the current bird flu.The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has also caused 11 deaths in Vietnam but the other eight countries hit with bird flu have not reported any human fatalities.(Source: AFP, ABC Health News, Feb 2004)