The first person to be stricken by bird flu in Indonesia this year is seriously ill. Vietnam and Hong Kong have recorded new cases of infection of birds while the problem of illegal vaccines has reared its head again.
Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A 14-year-old boy is the 75th person to get bird flu in Indonesia. Vietnam is trying to limit new outbreaks of infection and in Hong Kong a bird killed by the virus has been found.
In Indonesia, Nyoman Kandun, director-general of communicable disease control, said the condition of the boy from Tangerang in West Java, admitted to Persahabatan hospital in Jakarta on 1 January, was “serious”. The boy had come in contact with a dead duck. Several tests are being carried out. This is the first case in the country since 28 November when a 35-year-old woman died of the virus. Tens of millions of birds are bred in backyards in the more than 17,000 islands that make up Indonesia.
According to statistics of the World Health Organisation for the end of 2006, there have been 261 certified cases of bird flu in 10 countries since 2003, with 157 fatalities including 57 in Indonesia alone. WHO said there were more than 700 epidemics in 2006 of both wild and bred birds.
Although there have been fewer cases of human infection in recent months, the virus is still widespread in south-east Asia as well as in other parts of the world. In Vietnam, the virus was discovered in the provinces of Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Hau Giang in December, according to the National Animal Health Department. In Bac Lieu, authorities culled around 21,650 birds in recent weeks. This is much less than the millions of birds that have been slaughtered in recent years, however it is enough to show that infection persists. The onset of the winter season and significant movement of people as well as the increased consumption of fowl expected for the imminent celebration of the Lunar New Year are cause for concern.
In China, bans on selling live poultry, slaughtering birds in markets and eating raw eggs are still in place. In Hong Kong, on 4 January, the government announced that it had found a wild bird killed by bird flu, although it has not ascertained whether it was killed by the strain lethal for humans. It may have been infected by migratory birds. Investigations are under way in all the Causeway Bay area. The level of alert remains high although only 17 out of 11,000 birds examined in 2006 were found to be infected.
The bird gardens of three major parks, Hong Kong Park, Kowloon Park and the Hong Kong Zoological Gardens, which are within a three-kilometer radius of the place where the dead bird was found, have been closed. There are plans to take sample tests from birds bred at home.
Meanwhile, on 6 January, Thai police arrested three people who were trying to smuggle 1,800 bottles of illegal bird flu vaccine into the country. The vaccine was produced in China and destined for Bangkok via Hong Kong. The vaccine is much cheaper than the official one and is banned due to fears that it may encourage mutations of the virus. The country has been hard hit by the epidemic. Its latest death from bird flu was confirmed in September 2006. Once the world’s fourth largest exporter of poultry, now it exports only already cooked chickens.
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