UN fears bird flu virus may spread

UN fears bird flu virus may spread

BEIJING — Another person died from a new strain of bird flu in China yesterday, state media said, bringing to 10 the number of deaths from the H7N9 virus, as a United Nations body said it was concerned the virus could spread across borders in poultry.

5 HOURS 52 MIN AGO

BEIJING — Another person died from a new strain of bird flu in China yesterday, state media said, bringing to 10 the number of deaths from the H7N9 virus, as a United Nations body said it was concerned the virus could spread across borders in poultry.

The latest victim was in the commercial hub of Shanghai, the official Xinhua news agency reported, where several of the 38 cases to date have been found. All of the cases so far have been found in eastern China.The exact source of infection remains unknown, though samples have tested positive in some birds in poultry markets that remain the focus of investigations by China and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Speaking in Bangkok, an FAO official said the organisation was worried about the spread of the virus outside of China. “This particular region is land linked and so there is a possibility that if, inadvertently or advertently, somebody moves infected poultry across borders, we can anticipate the spread of this virus,” said Mr Subhash Morzaria, the FAO’s Regional Manager of the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases.

“We are proactively initiating surveillance programmes in neighbouring countries like Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam which border China and are at particular risk and we are trying to understand how the poultry movement has taken place so we can identify more accurately where the risk is going to be,” he added.

The new virus is severe in most humans, leading to fears that if it becomes easily transmissible, it could cause a deadly influenza pandemic, though there has been no indication of that happening.

“This new H7N9 virus hasn’t been demonstrated to be transmitted between humans, so from that context we think that the H7N9 virus is not going to be a pandemic like H1N1 strains. These are the early indications,” said Mr Morzaria. He assured that there is no connection between the outbreak and the thousands of dead pigs which have been found floating in Shanghai rivers in recent weeks.

Yesterday, state media reported that residents in Nanjing, the eastern province of Jiangsu, were ordered to cull all their poultry, as authorities stepped up attempts to halt the spread of the virus.

Thousands of birds and livestock were slaughtered by the Tuesday midnight deadline, the China Daily said.

It added that residents who did not comply with the regulation in Nanjing would be fined up to 50 yuan (S$10).

The government has focused so far on closing wholesale markets in Shanghai and several nearby cities, and has sent guards with nets to chase pigeons in Shanghai parks, to snare and later euthanise potentially infected birds.

Still, the new virus has unsettled some. “I’ve been really afraid to shop here since I heard the news that they found the virus in pigeons here,” said Mr Cheng Long, 26, a restaurant cook shopping for vegetables at the same market. He now avoids the stray dogs roaming the market in case they have been infected: “I come here every day and can’t afford to take any chances. People like us are the first ones to get sick from such diseases.”

Chinese authorities have also detained a dozen people for spreading rumours about the spread of bird flu.

Yum Brands, the biggest foreign fast-food chain operator in China, yesterday said the outbreak would have a “significant, negative impact” on this months’ sales at KFC stores in China. Agencies