Officials in Thailand Confirm Two Human Cases of Bird Flu

Government officials today confirmed Thailand’s first two human cases of bird flu and an outbreak among chickens in central Suphan Buri province.

The announcements followed days of official denials that the country had any cases of the disease, which has killed five people in Vietnam.

Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said tests on two patients were positive and one was negative. The patients were reportedly in Suphan Buri and Kanchanaburi provinces.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said earlier that there were five patients being tested in all, but there was no immediate word on the remaining two.

Meanwhile, Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob said bird flu had been confirmed in chickens after officials collected and tested samples from more than 100,000 of the birds nationwide. Testing was continuing, he said.

Thailand had denied the presence of the disease for days. Farmers and others alleged the government had perpetrated a massive cover-up to protect lucrative chicken exports.

As Thaksin spoke, economic and health ministers held an urgent meeting to map out strategies to cope with the economic and health impact.

Along with the reemergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome, bird flu has led to a regional health alert in parts of Asia.

A World Health Organization team and six scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are in Hanoi hoping to track down how the virus, called H5N1, jumped from poultry to people.

Scientists believe that people get the disease through contact with sick birds. So far, there has been no evidence of person-to-person transmission.

But health officials worry the avian virus could mutate to allow human transmission, which could make bird flu a bigger health crisis than SARS. That disease, also caused by a virus, killed nearly 800 people worldwide last year and afflicted more than 8,000 others.

Thailand is among the world’s top poultry exporters, and stocks in its multibillion-dollar industry plunged as much as 7.1% on Thursday.

Japan announced a ban on Thai chicken meat imports Thursday as a precaution.

Fears over Asia’s bird flu outbreak grew when worst-hit Vietnam admitted Wednesday that nearly 900,000 chickens possibly exposed to the deadly virus had been sold to the public before a mass slaughter was ordered.

In Hong Kong, a dead falcon tested positive for bird flu Wednesday, prompting officials to step up surveillance there.