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Another bird flu death in Indonesia
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MUMBAI: Indonesia said yesterday a woman had died of bird flu, while India nervously waited to see if people in the country had been infected as test results on 12 placed in quarantine were due within hours. First results of laboratory tests show there is a "distinct possibility" some humans are infected with bird flu, Health Secretary P.K. Hota told news channel NDTV. In Jakarta, a Health Ministry official said a 27-yearold woman who lived in the capital had died of bird flu, according to local hospital tests. If confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the woman would be the 20th Indonesian to die from avian flu. After an uneasy lull, bird flu has spread rapidly across Europe, into Africa and now India, the world's second-most populous nation, where the majority of people live in rural areas side by side with livestock and domestic fowl. On Tuesday, Malaysia and Hungary joined 13 other countries this month to report outbreaks of the H5N1 virus in birds. |
Indian health workers, some wringing the necks of chickens, others using poison, are culling hundreds of thousands of birds to try to stamp out the country's first outbreak of the virus. Wearing blue overalls, antiviral masks and goggles, they have so far culled about 400,000 birds in Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital. But a report in the Times of India newspaper said the culling process suffered from defects because many birds, buried alive in shallow pits, were re-emerging. State health director T.P. Doke denied knowledge of the chickens being buried alive. The dozen quarantined people have been placed in an isolation ward of a hospital in Navapur town in western Maharashtra state where the virus was found in poultry on Saturday. Those quarantined either had flu-like symptoms or were kept there as a precautionary measure. Blood samples from dozens of other people were also being tested, officials said. Adding to fears, there were reports of more poultry dying beyond Maharashtra, where the sudden deaths of 50,000 birds heralded the initial outbreak. |
In Brussels, European Union animal health experts considered requests from France and the Netherlands Europe's biggest poultry producers to be allowed to vaccinate millions of birds against avian influenza. Talks on the request are continuing. Bird flu has killed more than 90 people since 2003. Despite its rapid march around the globe, it remains hard for people to catch. But experts fear it could mutate and spread easily among people, triggering a pandemic that could bring economic chaos and overwhelm health services. In Europe, officials urged people to carry on eating poultry meat after a string of outbreaks in birds. But with demand falling, poultry farmers in Greece warned they could soon be forced out of business. The WHO says thoroughly cooked poultry meat and eggs are safe to eat, but that assurance has failed to calm consumers in many countries. Agencies |
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