birdflu spreads its wings

Five bird flu cases in Japan
From correspondents in Tokyo, Japan
18dec04

FOUR employees of a bird-flu contaminated poultry farm and one person who helped disinfect the facility may have contracted the virus during an outbreak early this year in Japan, the Tokyo government said today.

If confirmed, the cases would mark the first human infections from avian influenza in Japan.
The five were based in rural Kyoto prefecture (state), about 370km west of Tokyo, which suffered a bird flu outbreak after a farmer tried to cover up the fact the disease was killing thousands of his chickens.

Researchers found antibodies to the bird flu virus in blood samples taken from the people in February and March, but were unable to determine if any of them had actually contracted the disease, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said there was a chance the five were infected with the virus, but it hadn't reached a conclusion. There was no threat the five could still infect others, it said.









The government took blood samples from about 60 people, including farm employees, decontamination workers and local government employees for the study.

The ministry planned to issue a more detailed report on Wednesday.

Bird flu has swept through farms across Asia this year, ravaging the poultry industry as more than 100 million birds were culled in an effort to stop the spread of the virus.

The disease also jumped to humans, killing 12 people in Thailand and 20 in Vietnam. There is no concrete evidence yet of human-to-human transmission, but experts fear the virus could mutate to a form that could spread among humans, sparking the next global pandemic.

Japan's outbreak earlier this year, which affected several farms in the western and southern parts of the country, was its first since 1925. Some 300,000 birds were culled to contain the disease.