China reported Friday that it had confirmed cases of deadly avian flu in poultry stocks in two more provinces and found suspected outbreaks in at least two more regions, highlighting the dangerous ability of the virus to hopscotch across Asia.
The government said it found the H5N1 virus in chickens in Hubei and Hunan provinces in the center of the country, far from the Vietnam border region where China’s first outbreak was reported. Cases were also suspected in fowl in Anhui, another central province, and Guangdong, the area near Hong Kong where SARS was first identified last year. There also were indications of an outbreak outside Shanghai.
The virus, which has killed 10 people in Vietnam and Thailand, has spread through at least 10 countries, most probably through migrating birds. The avian flu has devastated poultry industries and raised fears that a viral mutation could trigger person-to-person transmissions, setting off a human influenza pandemic.
So far, all human cases of the flu have been traced to direct contact with a live, infected bird. But World Health Organizations officials warn that as the virus spreads through bird populations the chance increases of bird flu and human flu combining in one person to cause a powerfully mutated version of the illness.
Governments appear to be responding aggressively to the outbreak by culling poultry in affected areas, inoculating other bird stocks and cooperating with international scientists. However, charges were leveled earlier in the outbreak that at least one country–Thailand –had delayed action in an effort to protect its poultry industry.
China, which came under fire last year for covering up cases of SARS in the early weeks of that epidemic, said Friday it set up a national command center to fight bird flu and named a vice premier to run it. The move came a day after Premier Wen Jiabao issued an eight-point directive instructing agencies to deal with the problem aggressively.
China slaughtering fowl
The official Xinhua news agency said that mass slaughters of domestic fowl are under way in affected areas.
Hong Kong, just south of Guangdong, banned imports of live birds and poultry meat from the rest of China on Friday.
Across Asia, there are many urban areas that appear particularly susceptible to the transmission of some human diseases because of the warm climate and densely populated areas where people and animals live in close proximity. In China, for example, most cities and towns operate outdoor food markets that stock live poultry
In Indonesia, which for days insisted that large-scale slaughter of chickens was not necessary, officials reversed that decision and ordered a mass cull of poultry in infected areas. Sofyan Sudrajad, an Agriculture Ministry official, said Friday that the outbreak could leave 1.2 million people jobless and cost the country $916 million.
Vietnam said it may be necessary to destroy all the chickens in the country.
Thailand also said that bird flu has been found in poultry in a province bordering the popular tourist resort of Phuket, the first time the virus has been detected in the country’s south. Thailand, struck hardest by the disease, said it hoped to be turning a corner by reporting that its cull of birds in infected areas is nearly finished. But the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization said mass slaughters, which it says are the most effective way of stamping out the virus and preventing a human flu pandemic, were not happening fast enough.
Senior FAO official Hans Wagner said that although more than 25 million birds had been killed, the FAO was “concerned that mass cullings are not taking place at a speed we consider absolutely necessary to contain the virus H5N1.”
Small farmers’ worries
Nor were some governments doing enough to convince small farmers, many looking at the destruction of their livelihoods and hiding their stock, of the need to cull.
“As long as small farmers and commercial producers, especially in poorer countries, do not receive an adequate financial incentive for killing their chickens, they will probably not apply suggested emergency measures,” Wagner said.
“There is a real threat that the virus may linger on in poorer countries which are without adequate resources to apply control measures.”
