- (AFP) - The bird flu virus tightened its grip on Asia
as the toll from the disease rose to 13 with the death of a seven-year-old
Thai boy, two more cases emerged in Vietnam, and China reported suspected
outbreaks in two new provinces.
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- The boy from Suphan Buri province, a rural district west
of Bangkok which has been badly hit by the disease, became the kingdom's
fourth confirmed fatality, health officials said Tuesday.
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- Thailand is investigating another 18 suspected cases
of bird flu infections of which 11 have died, including a four-year-old
boy who also passed away.
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- However, in Germany authorities said a woman who was
suspected to be Europe's first human case of bird flu after returning from
Thailand with suspicious symptoms, did not have the disease.
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- While in Vietnam, two more cases were confirmed bringing
the number of people infected with the disease to 13, nine of whom have
died.
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- Fears of a disastrous outbreak in the world's most populous
country, China, deepened Tuesday when it announced new suspected outbreaks
in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and confirmed a case in southern Guangdong.
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- China, the world's second-largest poultry producer, has
now reported confirmed or suspected bird flu cases in one third of the
vast country.
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- However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in
Geneva Monday that although bird flu has erupted in 10 nations and killed
another nine people in Vietnam, there was still a chance of containing
the deadly virus.
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- "We have no pandemic, we have very few cases, there
is no indication whatsoever of ... any widespread large outbreak caused
by this outbreak in humans," said Klaus Stoehr, head of the WHO's
global influenza programme.
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- Until now the disease is believed to have been passed
on to humans by direct contact with sick birds or their droppings, but
the WHO caused alarm Sunday by saying that human-to-human transmission
was a "possible explanation" for the deaths of two sisters in
Vietnam.
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- The UN health body has also warned that the highly pathogenic
H5N1 strain of bird flu could kill millions across the globe if it combines
with a human influenza virus to create a new virus transmissible among
humans.
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- However, Stoehr said the fact that only a handful of
human infections have been reported so far, despite the bird flu virus
having circulated for several weeks, was quite encouraging.
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- Experts on bird flu began meeting in Rome on Tuesday
to try to find a faster way to halt the spread of the potentially fatal
disease than the main strategy deployed so far -- a slaughter of tens of
millions of chickens.
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- About 20 experts were expected to attend the two-day
meeting, held behind closed doors at the headquarters of the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
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- The H5N1 bird flu virus has emerged in Cambodia, China,
Indonesia, Japan, Laos and South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam, while Taiwan
and Pakistan have reported weaker strains.
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- Fears of an epidemic on the scale of the SARS crisis
which gripped Asia last year have already sent stockmarkets tumbling around
the region.
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- The economic fallout continued Tuesday as Thailand's
ports braced for the return of some 1,000 containers of frozen chicken
products rejected mostly by the kingdom's two major poultry buyers, the
European Union and Japan.
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- As the nations with infected poultry flocks rolled out
a massive cull, countries which have so far escaped infection stepped up
measures to prevent the spread of the virus.
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- The European Union, Thailand's second-biggest chicken
buyer, extended a ban on Thai poultry and pet birds from Asia for six months
to August 15.
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- India, which has already banned all poultry imports to
protect its billion-plus population, deployed hundreds of soldiers along
the Myanmar border to ward off the virus which it fears could be spread
through smuggled poultry from Thailand.
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- Australian quarantine officers Tuesday warned travellers
from Asia against smuggling poultry into the country and vowed to destroy
any meat or eggs, saying they would adopt a "zero tolerance"
approach.
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- In Hong Kong, where H5N1 killed six people in a 1997
outbreak, authorities have given a stay of execution to the territory's
famous bird market, where thousands of budgies, parrots and other exotic
specimens are sold every year.
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- But as jitters over the outbreak grew, Shanghai banned
bird-watching in nature reserves to prevent contact between people and
wild birds which are suspected of spreading the disease across Asia.
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- Indonesia confirmed Tuesday that the strain which has
killed millions of poultry there was the deadly H5N1 variety, and extended
its chicken cull which the WHO has described as inadequate.
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- The FAO on Tuesday granted 1.6 million dollars in emergency
aid to Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan and Vietnam as "seed money" to
fight the outbreak but said that international assistance was needed.
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