Bird flu kills three in new Asia health scare
HANOI - Asia faced a new health scare on Tuesday after three Vietnamese died from "bird flu," but the WHO said there are no signs yet an outbreak that has ravaged the region's poultry industry is spreading between people.
"The evidence to date is that there is no sign of human-to-human transmission," Dr. Shigeru Omi of the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said in a statement.
But he said the consequences would be dire if the virus latched on to the human influenza virus and spread among people, who have little immune protection against the strain.
"The ensuing virus would then be highly pathogenic and transmissible," said Omi, the WHO's Regional Director for the Western Pacific.
In a region already alarmed by the return of SARS (news - web sites), health officials say they are worried by the rapid spread of H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, in Japan, South Korean and Vietnam.
The Paris-based world animal disease body OIE said it would send scientists to Asia to investigate the outbreaks, which it said could pose a serious threat to humans under certain conditions.
The OIE group would start in Vietnam, where the WHO said tests conducted by a Hong Kong laboratory confirmed that bird flu killed one adult and two children from the Hanoi area.
They were among 14 people who fell ill with influenza in Hanoi and surrounding provinces. Eleven of the 13 children and the mother of one of the children died.
Omi said there was no evidence so far linking the remaining cases to the flu virus that has killed nearly one million chickens in Vietnam. But investigators are exploring the possibility they were exposed to the same poultry.
The H5N1 avian flu virus spreads rapidly among poultry but rarely infects humans. Six people died in Hong Kong in 1997 during an outbreak of avian influenza and last year it infected a father and son in the crowded city.
In Brussels, the European Commission 's health and consumer protection spokeswoman Beate Gminder said: "There is no health risk. We don't import any poultry or birds from Vietnam. The virus can jump from species to species and it can transfer from animals to humans."
"A Dutch vet died last year (during bird flu outbreak in the Netherlands) but he didn't take the medication," Gminder said.
The Netherlands, the European Union's largest poultry exporter, slaughtered 30.7 million birds at some 1,300 farms to contain an outbreak of avian influenza that was first discovered in March 2003 and led to one human death.
Belgian Food Safety Authority (AFSA) spokesman Pascal Houbaert said: "We're monitoring the situation in Vietnam. We had a bird flu outbreak here last year. People must get vaccinated and take medication. I think the type of bird flu virus in Vietnam is different and more dangerous than the one we had here."
In Moscow, Russian health and agriculture ministries were not immediately available for comment.
But local news agencies quoted the veterinary service as saying Moscow had no fear of bird flu as it does not import poultry or poultry meat from Vietnam, Japan or other southeast Asian countries.
"I avoid chicken"
Hanoi declared last week that it had been struck by a fast-spreading bird flu that has hit other countries in Asia, which has a vast poultry industry.
South Korea, which has already culled nearly two million chickens and ducks, reported its first new case of avian flu in more than a week Tuesday, dashing hopes the outbreak was subsiding.
Hundreds of people living in affected areas have been given blood tests, although a health official said Tuesday no one had shown symptoms of the disease.
In Japan, where the first bird flu outbreak in years was reported Monday, the government vowed to protect consumers already worried about the safety of beef, fish and eggs.
"I am very worried. When I bought my lunch today, I avoided chicken," said computer worker Masako Kuramoto, 49, as she emerged from a supermarket in central Tokyo.
Thailand, which produces about one billion chickens a year and exports mainly to Japan and Europe, said it was free of bird flu but was battling an outbreak of poultry cholera.
The government has destroyed hundreds of thousands of chickens since November to stop the spread of a virulent strain of poultry cholera, known as Pasteurella Multocida Type A, which cannot spread to humans.
Deeply impoverished Cambodia, sandwiched between Vietnam and Thailand, said it had banned poultry imports from neighboring countries last week and sent experts to its chicken farms.
China, blamed by political rival Taiwan for a case of bird flu last month, said it had no cases.
By Ho Binh Minh - Reuters - January 13, 2004.
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