another victim to bird flu

Thursday, March 18, 2004 4:51 PM

Thai woman confirmed as 8th bird flu victim

BANGKOK - Thailand has reported its eight death from bird flu, saying a woman who died on March 12 was infected with the disease, in the first fatality here since mid-February.

"The health ministry has found the bird flu virus in the saliva of a woman who died on March 12," Disease Control Department chief Charal Trinvuthipong said in a statement.

Charal said the 39-year-old woman from the central province of Ayutthaya fell ill on March 1 and her condition deteriorated sharply on March 8.

"The dead woman worked at an aluminium factory, she did not keep chickens at home but her neighbor raised fighting cocks which all died in mid-February," he said.

"Her relatives also raised fighting cocks but they did not fall ill," he added. So far all the human victims of bird flu, including 15 in Vietnam, are believed to have been infected through contact with sick birds.

Charal said that since December 1 Thailand had reported 12 confirmed cases of bird flu, including eight people who died and four who recovered from the disease.

Authorities are also investigating 21 suspected cases including eight people who died, 12 who survived and one who is still being treated in hospital.

Thailand slaughtered 36 million birds and slapped quarantine regulations on affected zones in an effort to halt the spread of the disease which hit 41 of its 76 provinces.

The government planned to declare itself free of bird flu this week, but those plans have reportedly been put on hold until early April.

The United Nations health agency has warned it was premature to celebrate an end to the bird flu crisis because after such a massive outbreak the risk of reinfection remained high.

However, the government has been keen to put the bird flu episode behind it and begin rebuilding the kingdom's 1.2 billion dollar poultry industry which was devastated by the disease.

Officially, declarations that a country is bird flu-free can only be made by the World Organization for Animal Health after a 21-day surveillance period with no new outbreaks.

H5N1 infections have also broken out in Cambodia, Laos, China, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. Taiwan and Pakistan are tackling less virulent strains.

The WHO has warned that H5N1 could kill millions across the globe if it combined with a human influenza virus to create a new, highly contagious strain transmissible among humans.
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Now they are saying it could Kill MILLIONS across the globe if it mutates !! Is this some kind of a hint ?? Is it time to panic ?? This much I do know, it's costing the industry Billions of Dollars because of this bird Flu and some countries are making claims that it has passed.
But we know better.