Thailand confirms 16th bird flu death
Pastor Dale Morgan
Saturday August 5, 7:29 PM
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Thailand confirms 16th bird flu death*
Thailand has reported its 16th bird flu death after test results
confirmed that a 27-year-old man had died from the H5N1 virus.
"The victim was a 27-year-old man from the central province of Uthai
Thani," said Thawat Sunthrajarn, director general of the Public Health
Ministry's disease control department, on Saturday. Thawat said the man
died on Thursday.
It was Thailand's second bird flu fatality this year, following the
death of a 17-year-old boy in late July. The boy died after coming into
contact with a bird that had the disease.
The public health ministry said the 27-year-old farmer got sick on July
24 after burying a dead chicken with bare hands. He had 16 chickens at
his farm, but the ministry did not say whether all his chickens were dead.
The man then developed a severe headache and fever, the ministry said in
a statement. He was from Uthai Thani's Sawang Arom district, 220
kilometers (136 miles) north of Bangkok.
Following his death, health workers gave his wife anti-virus drugs and
put her under a 14-day bird flu surveillance.
Earlier in the day, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra discussed
bird flu during his weekly radio show and urged the public to report to
health authorities any information on the deadly virus.
"If you see dead chickens or know someone gets sick (due to suspected
bird flu), you must immediately give all such information to doctors so
that authorities can contain the outbreak," Thaksin said in a radio address.
Thailand is among the countries hardest hit by the deadly H5N1 virus,
recording 24 human cases, 16 of them fatal, since the outbreak in 2004.
To help control the virus, 900,000 volunteers have been recruited across
the country to spray disinfectant around poultry farms every three
months and check for signs of illness among residents.
Thailand was criticized for being slow to respond to the outbreak of
bird flu in January 2004, but now is considered one of the countries
best prepared to battle the disease.
The kingdom aims to be completely free of the virus in three years.
Bird flu has badly hurt Thailand's poultry industry, once the world's
biggest, after countries around the world slapped bans on raw Thai
chicken in the wake of the bird flu outbreak in 2004.
Thailand, now the world's fourth-largest exporter of poultry, only
exports cooked chickens.
Health experts fear the H5N1 strain of bird flu could mutate into a form
that is transmitted more easily between humans, which would mark the
first stage of a global flu pandemic that could kill millions.
Thailand has stockpiled 1.5 million capsules of the anti-viral drug
oseltamvir, a generic version of the drug Tamiflu, which the kingdom
began producing this year.
Tamiflu, believed to be the most effective defense against bird flu, is
designed to block reproduction of the influenza virus after infection.
If taken early enough, the drug can avert the worst effects of flu and
shorten the duration of sickness.