Deadly "bird flu" may mutate, spread to other hosts
Hanoi (AsiaNews/Agencies) A UN veterinary expert in communicable diseases is due to arrive this week in Hanoi to help combat and study the "bird flu" epidemic that has already rapidly spread throughout the country's chicken population.
The H5N1 virus is the direct cause of hundreds of thousands of dead chickens in Vietnam. Among health authorities, there is the increasing fear that the virus is rapidly mutating to spread to other animal hosts, including humans.
While still unconfirmed, Vietnam officials say a number of ducks and pigs are also victims of the disease. Moreover, Hanoi health authorities say that recently 12 people in the capital have died of the disease. The WHO confirmed yesterday that 3 of the victims were carriers, while confirmation of the others is still pending.
The Vietnamese government has decided to buy all dead chickens in an effort to contain the disease and prevent "panic sales" of poultry by desperate farmers seeking to take advantage of depressed prices. Vietnam does not export any poultry.
Elsewhere in Asia, today an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 virus hit nearby South Korea, after an eleven-day lull in new infections. The latest case involves a poultry farm in Yangsan, 300 kilometers south of the capital, where thousands of chickens died of the disease.
No virus-linked human deaths or infections have been reported so far in South Korea.
Meanwhile Asian countries are taking precautionary measures: South Korean and Vietmanese authorities have ordered farmers to kill and bury millions of chickens and ducks (1.1 million slaughtered in South Korea, 2.5 tonnes buried in Vietnam) and have quarantined affected poultry farms. Hong Kong and Cambodia have banned poultry imports from affected countries.
The H5N1 virus is the same strain that in 1997 killed millions of chickens in Guangdong and Hong Kong. Jumped to humans, it killed 7 people in Hong Kong. (MS)
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