New Outbreak of Bird Flu

[Gaybutton]

A new outbreak of Bird Flu is occurring in Thailand. So far it is confined to the Phichit area, which is just to the south of a city with which many of you may be more familiar, Phitsanulok. Phichit is also located in the Kamphaeng Phet-Sukothai area, and that's the same area where the last outbreak occurred.

 

So far there has been one death and several illnesses that, to date, have not resulted in death.

 

From what I have read about Bird Flu, you don't get the disease from eating poultry or eggs. You get it by direct contact with infected bird droppings and/or direct contact with live or dead infected birds. So, unless you are going to be somewhere where you might come in to such contact, as far as I know you are safe.

 

You might want to read the following article:

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PHICHIT, July 27 (TNA)

 

Eleven more suspected bird flu cases were reported in Thailand's lower northern province of Phichit on Thursday.

 

Dr. Prajak Wattanakul, head of the Phichit provincial public health office, said that the 11 patients, mostly children aged between 4-14, are suspected of being infected with avian influenza virus and were admitted to five different hospitals in the province on Thursday.

 

Some of them had contacted with dead poultry and others live in areas where a large number of fowls died of unknown causes.

 

All the 11 patients were quarantined and samples of their blood and phlegm were sent for laboratory tests in the medical science centre in Nakhon Sawan, expected to be able to release the test results Friday, the doctor said.

 

(TNA)-E009

[Guest Hedda]

I won't repeat here what I said on Hedda's Hopper, but it looks like the Thai authorities have not yet learned the lesson of the first epidemic in 2004. Keep ahead of the virus and keep people informed at the first opportunity.

 

There's no reason why a young boy should have died when the area in which he lived was a known "hot spot" for this flu before and the press was filled with accounts of mysterious mass poultry deaths as long a 2-4 weeks ago.

 

I fear that the politicians in the caretaker government are so concerned about political survival that the public welfare and peoples' business is being neglected.

 

I also wonder if these fighting cocks, some of which may have been innoculated for bird flu for political, not health reasons, and which apparently infected this dead boy, have become deadly carriers of the disease.

[Gaybutton]

I fear that the politicians in the caretaker government are so concerned about political survival that the public welfare and peoples' business is being neglected.

 

It reminds me of the mayor in "Jaws," who was much more concerned about his town's image than he was about doing something substantial to protect people from the shark.

 

Sometimes, when I'm on the road, I see trucks carrying live poultry. The chickens are stuffed in like sardines. I always wonder where these chickens came from and whether they were satisfatorally inspected prior to being shipped out. When the prior outbreaks were so much more widespread, there were several instances, as I recall, that shipments containing diseased birds were caught.

 

When it becomes a question of money or safety, somehow money often prevails. That's the scariest thought of all, in my opinion.

 

The latest is in the following article:

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BANGKOK, July 28 (TNA)

 

Thai authorities in provinces formerly infected with bird flu virus are on high alert for a possible re-emergence of the disease after the nation confirmed the first death from avian flu in one and a half years earlier this week.

 

Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin said as a new outbreak of bid flu which killed a 17-year-old teenage boy--the first human bird flu death in the kingdom since February 2005--was reported in the northern Phichit Province earlier this week, he had ordered officials across the metropolis to monitor all signs of a re-emergence of the disease.

 

The governor visited a chicken farm in the East of the capital, saying it was not widely known that Bangkok has 24 modern poultry farms with some 1.1 million birds altogether.

 

However, he said surveillance measures against the threat of a possible re-emergence of bird flu imposed during the last outbreaks are still in place at these chicken farms.

 

Mr. Apirak directed city officials to continue to educate poultry farmers, especially those small-scale producers who keep chickens at their homes, about the new outbreak and how to prevent themselves from contracting the disease.

 

"Poultry farmers must inform officials at once if their chickens die mysteriously and they must not move the animals,'' the Bangkok governor said.

 

He said city officials would coordinate closely with the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives to prevent a new outbreak in Bangkok.

 

Meanwhile, in Kanchanaburi on the Myanmar border, West of Bangkok, livestock officials met Friday to discuss measures to prevent the disease from returning in areas infected by the virus during previous outbreaks.

 

Viriya Kaewthong, provincial livestock chief, said checkpoints would be set up in areas at risk, especially in Phanomtuan District, to prevent the illegal movement of poultry.

 

Local officials have been on high alert to monitor for a bird flu outbreak and indicated that they would spray chemical disinfectant to kill the virus.

 

''Some chickens have died in the province but our tests confirmed they were free of bird flu,'' Mr. Viriya said.

 

Boonnam Chaiwisuth, head of the provincial health service, said he directed health officials and volunteers to visit villagers to educate them on bird flu virus and prevention as the current changeable weather from rainy season to winter could help the virus spread more quickly.

 

''Hospitals across the province would also monitor for patients with bird flu-like symptoms," he said.

 

Similar measures have been imposed by livestock officials in the southern Phang-nga Province, according to local sources.

 

Teams of officials were sent into several villages in Ta Kua Pa District, hard hit by the bird flu outbreaks two years ago, to conduct a thorough check for sick fowls and humans.

 

They also sprayed the areas to prevent the virus from returning.

 

During the past outbreaks, Phang-nga had culled hundreds of thousands of chickens to contain the virus.

 

Bird flu virus has claimed 15 lives in Thailand so far.

 

The country reported the first outbreak in early 2004 and since then has devastated the country's poultry business.

 

It has also spread in many countries in Asia, Africa and Europe and killed more than 130 people around the globe

 

(TNA)--E110, E002

[Guest Hedda]

Talk about things not changing since 2004, this is what the Nation wrote today:

 

Amid mounting reports of irregular poultry deaths in many areas, leading virologist Professor Prasert Thongcharoen expressed strong doubts yesterday about the accuracy of official reports of avian-flu tests on dead birds by livestock authorities.

 

"From my experience, when they say 'no, nothing' it means 'yes, it is' [bird flu]," he told The Nation in a telephone interview after returning from a trip to Phitsanulok, one of the provinces where mass deaths of poultry have been reported recently.

***

Prasert has previously confronted the government by telling the media that a patient sent to Siriraj Hospital, where he works as a professor of microbiology, had died of avian flu while the government kept insisting the virus did not exist in the country. The government later admitted that the death was the first case in Thailand of a human dying from the virus."

 

 

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/07/22...al_30009304.php

 

[Gaybutton]

Trying to cover up something as serious as Bird Flu is not only reprehensible, it is also absurd. If the government is worried about Thailand's image, then it would make much more sense to me for officials to clearly state where the outbreaks exist, how widespread it is, and what they are doing about it. Sooner or later cover-ups have a way of coming out. When that happens, then how can anyone believe it when the government states that the problem is solved, even if it really has been solved?

[Gaybutton]

Here's the latest Bird Flu information:

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112 Patients Admitted for Bird Flu Tests in North

 

PHICHIT, July 29 (TNA)

 

Thai public health authorities have admitted that over one hundred patients from 14 provinces suspected of having contracted avian influenza and are being monitored and tested for bird flu, but no new cases have been reported following a flurry of new reports during the past week.

 

No new cases of avian influenza have been confirmed, a senior Public Health Ministry official said Saturday.

 

Permanent Secretary for Public Health Dr. Prat Boonyawongvirot said a total of 112 patients from 14 provinces, including two from Bangkok, had been admitted for further laboratory tests after earlier tests showed that most suffered from human influenza, but not avian influenza.

 

Dr. Prat said health officers were also closely monitoring about three dozen medical personnel and three other persons who looked after a 17-year-old youth who died of confirmed avian influenza in the northern province of Phichit last Monday.

 

Although no further cases of bird flu have been confirmed, public health authorities met Saturday in both Phichit and the neighbouring Phitsanulok Province to assess the situation and work out stricter bird flu control measures. So far no H5N1 virus has been found.

 

Nonetheless, physicians, nurses and public health officials were told to be more alert for people suspected to have contracted the disease.

 

Hospitals across Thailand had admitted more patients suspected of contracting avian influenza, Public Health Minister Phinij Jarusombat indicated Friday, most with cough and standard influenza symptoms.

 

He said he would establish a special medical team to administer the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to suspected cases.

 

(TNA)--E111, E002

[Guest Hedda]

"Hospitals across Thailand had admitted more patients suspected of contracting avian influenza, Public Health Minister Phinij Jarusombat indicated Friday, most with cough and standard influenza symptoms.

 

He said he would establish a special medical team to administer the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to suspected cases. "

 

GOOD GRIEF !!! What on earth has the health Ministry been doing since 2004 to prepare for what most experts saw as the inevitable recurrence of bird flu ?

 

Now, over two years later, with over 100 suspected new human cases, thousands of chickens sick again, they still don't have a procedure or teams in place to provide standardized treatment to people who present with signs of possible bird flu !

[Gaybutton]

It just keeps getting better and better. Well, they did say they are going to administer Tamiflu to suspected cases. They didn't say they will administer it to actual cases . . . just suspected ones.

 

Here's the latest:

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BANGKOK, July 31 (TNA)

 

Thailand's Public Health Ministry said Monday that the country now has 131 suspected bird flu cases under surveillance, waiting for lab test results to determine whether they have contracted the bird flu virus.

 

Department of Disease Control Director General Thawat Suntrajarn said that since the beginning of this year, there have been 1,960 suspected cases of bird flu, with 1,828 cases testing negative to the disease.

 

The 131 cases are waiting for the lab test results. Of these, the highest number is 37 cases in the northern province of Phichit, followed by 35 and 16 cases in neighbouring Sukhothai and Phitsanulok Provinces and 12 cases in the central province of Suphanburi.

 

After meeting public health officials, Public Health Minister Pinij Jarusombat said he had ordered medical specialists and senior officials to be on alert around the clock to control bird flu, dengue fever and hand, foot and mouth syndrome.

 

He also said that 765 persons in the northeastern province of Nakhon Phanom had been monitored for two weeks after having come into contact with diseased chickens.

 

As many as 300,000 fowls were culled on Sunday in the province, where a bird-flu outbreak was detected with the H5N1 virus.

 

The bird-flu virus killed a teenage boy in Phichit last week.

 

Two mobile labs were sent to Phichit and Nakhon Phanom on Monday and 20 specialist teams visited "red zone" areas in the affected provinces to give 24-hour advice to local health officials.

 

(TNA)E004, E002