Bird Flu - The Virus
The bird flu have now ramp thru China and Laos, as yet another case of a Thailand boy died of this SARS like flu. The rapid spread of this virus across 10 Asian countries have prompt the World Health Organization to ask for international fund to fight off these virus.
The great fear is that the H5N1 virus might mate with human influenza and unleash a pandemic among people with no immunity to it. But experts say that no matter how remote the possibility, they fear it could happen and WHO underlined that by launching its appeal with the Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health. In Bangkok, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said he expected a meeting of health and farm officials in the Thai capital today to help Thailand regain international confidence.
"Tomorrow, everything will be transparent and we hope to regain confidence from the meeting," he said after the European Union, a major customer of a Thai chicken industry which earns more than US$1bil (RM3.8bil) a year in exports, said it did not trust his government.
EU spokesman Beate Gminder said the 15-member bloc would demand independent verification of Thai measures to wipe out the disease before it considered lifting its ban on imports of Thai chicken. Gminder also shot down Thaksin's assurances to Thailand's vast army of chicken farmers, many of whom have accused him of telling the world there was fowl cholera when they suspected bird flu, that the crisis would be over in a month. The spread of bird flu has emerged with a rapidity WHO calls "historically unprecedented" and is proving difficult to stamp out despite the slaughter of millions of chickens, as a fresh outbreak in South Korea showed.
The deaths of the Thai boys means all but one of at least eight confirmed bird flu victims have been children. - Agencies
