Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Second bird flu outbreak in Nong Khai (Thailand)
Thai livestock officials have confirmed the country’s second outbreak of bird flu this year, saying they had detected the deadly H5N1 virus among chickens in Nong Khai province in the country’s Northeast.
The first outbreak of the year was confirmed on Jan 15, when the virus surfaced in ducks in Phitsanulok in the North.
“The results of laboratory tests confirmed that it’s the H5N1 virus, found in 2,000 chickens raised for their eggs” in Sri Chiang Mai district of Nong Khai, a livestock department official said. “Those chickens were culled on Jan 20,” she added.
Laboratory tests confirmed the avian flu H5N1 was in poultry on the farm, where 200 chickens died suddenly late last week.
Livestock Development Department director-general Pirom Srichan said the district has been declared an outbreak area with round-the-clock monitoring to prevent the illegal movement of poultry.
Strict measures have been imposed since 236 chickens were found dead last Saturday. Local livestock officials ordered mass cullings of the remaining almost 2,000 egg-bearing chickens immediately. The latest lab tests found the H5N1 virus in some chicken carcasses, Mr Pirom said.
Si Chiang Mai is the second area where the avian flu virus was found in a week after the Public Health Ministry’s Department of Communicable Disease Control announced on January 15 that laboratory tests confirmed the outbreak of the virus after the deaths of more than 100 ducks in Plaichumpol subdistrict of Phitsanulok province in the North, the first such case in six months.
The Public Health Ministry ordered its staff and community health volunteers to increase measures to curb the outbreak and prevent its spread to humans.
There have been 25 bird flu patients in Thailand since the most recent outbreak here in 2004, of which 17 patients died of infection with the H5N1 virus.
Avian influenza story source: Thailand News Services