Thailand hopes to be ‘bird flu free’ in a week

After the deaths of seven people and millions of chickens from bird flu, Thailand said on Tuesday it has contained the outbreak after nearly two months and hopes to declare the epidemic over next week. Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob told reporters the country would be declared free of bird flu on March 16 if there were no new outbreaks in any of the former infected or “red” zones, which have to go 21 days without further outbreaks before being downgraded to uninfected “green zones”. “Every district will become a green zone next Tuesday,” Mr Newin said after a weekly cabinet meeting, saying chicken farming could resume in those areas 69 days later. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) officials in Bangkok declined to comment on Mr Newin’s optimism, other than to say that the only body authorised to declare disease-free status was the World Organisation for Animal Health, also known as the OIE. Thailand, which has culled about 30 million chickens to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain, is the world’s fourth-largest chicken producer with annual exports worth $US 1.5 billion. During the height of the outbreak, authorities declared 400 “red zones” in 42 of its 76 provinces. The industry accounts for around 1 per cent of the south-east Asian nation’s economy. About 81,000 families rely on the industry for a living on 30,000 poultry farms and in related sectors, such as animal feed. Mr Newin’s comments coincided with confirmation from the Health Ministry of another human case of bird flu, taking Thailand’s official number of cases to 11. Seven of these have died. A further 15 people have died of bird flu in Vietnam. The ministry said in a statement the latest confirmed patient was a 29-year-old man who had recovered and been discharged from hospital. Despite the hopes that the epidemic is nearing an end, it is likely to be many more months before the industry recovers and Thais regain their appetites for chicken, even though health experts say eating cooked meat poses no threat. “I have just started eating eggs again,” said Chalerm Pinsakul, a chicken farmer from Suphanburi province in central Thailand. “But cooked meat? No, I have not eaten it yet.”

After the deaths of seven people and millions of chickens from bird flu, Thailand said on Tuesday it has contained the outbreak after nearly two months and hopes to declare the epidemic over next week. Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob told reporters the country would be declared free of bird flu on March 16 if there were no new outbreaks in any of the former infected or “red” zones, which have to go 21 days without further outbreaks before being downgraded to uninfected “green zones”. “Every district will become a green zone next Tuesday,” Mr Newin said after a weekly cabinet meeting, saying chicken farming could resume in those areas 69 days later. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) officials in Bangkok declined to comment on Mr Newin’s optimism, other than to say that the only body authorised to declare disease-free status was the World Organisation for Animal Health, also known as the OIE. Thailand, which has culled about 30 million chickens to prevent the spread of the deadly H5N1 avian influenza strain, is the world’s fourth-largest chicken producer with annual exports worth $US 1.5 billion. During the height of the outbreak, authorities declared 400 “red zones” in 42 of its 76 provinces. The industry accounts for around 1 per cent of the south-east Asian nation’s economy. About 81,000 families rely on the industry for a living on 30,000 poultry farms and in related sectors, such as animal feed. Mr Newin’s comments coincided with confirmation from the Health Ministry of another human case of bird flu, taking Thailand’s official number of cases to 11. Seven of these have died. A further 15 people have died of bird flu in Vietnam. The ministry said in a statement the latest confirmed patient was a 29-year-old man who had recovered and been discharged from hospital. Despite the hopes that the epidemic is nearing an end, it is likely to be many more months before the industry recovers and Thais regain their appetites for chicken, even though health experts say eating cooked meat poses no threat. “I have just started eating eggs again,” said Chalerm Pinsakul, a chicken farmer from Suphanburi province in central Thailand. “But cooked meat? No, I have not eaten it yet.”(Source: Reuters Health, March 2004)