China confirmed Tuesday that it found bird flu in dead ducks on a southern farm and was tracking 'suspect' cases in two other provinces, while Thailand said a young boy became the eighth victim of the disease in its deadliest outbreak since 1997.
Laos joined China, taking the total number of countries hit by the flu to 10. The virus sweeping Asia also has prompted the slaughter of tens of millions of birds. In China, the official Xinhua News Agency's dispatch was the first government confirmation that avian influenza has surfaced there.
Authorities immediately isolated the area around the farm in the Guangxi region of south China adjacent to Vietnam, where six people have died from the disease.
Some 14,000 birds within a three-kilometre radius of the farm in Dingdang were slaughtered, and all poultry for five kilometres around it was quarantined, Xinhua said. The farm is about 100 kilometres from Vietnam.
'Local governments have made necessary measures of slaughter or quarantine to prevent a spread,' Xinhua said. 'No people have been found infected so far and the epidemic has been in control.'
Roy Wadia, a spokesman for the World Health Organization in Beijing, said China's Health Ministry had informed the UN agency of the bird flu cases.
'There are no cases known in people, so far,' he said.
WHO believes the virus can be transmitted by migratory water fowl.
Bob Dietz, a WHO spokesman in Hanoi, Vietnam, said it 'wouldn't be surprising' to find bird flu could travel across the border.
'We're seeing it in other countries in southeast Asia,' Dietz said. 'There's no reason to assume China would be immune.'
Xinhua also said reports of bird deaths in a 'chicken-raising household' in central Hubei province and a 'duck-raising household' in nearby Hunan province had been diagnosed as 'suspect' bird flu. It emphasized that those diagnoses were preliminary.
China's openly aggressive campaign to combat the disease starkly contrasts with the government's initially secretive response last year to the SARS outbreak. Severe acute respiratory syndrome killed 349 people on the mainland before retreating in June.
Still, there were contradictions in the government's account. Xinhua said anti-flu efforts had been going on at the duck farm since Friday, but Yan Qibin, an official with the Food Quarantine Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture, said Tuesday his agency was investigating whether any ducks had died there.
Also Tuesday, other Chinese quarantine officials said they would impose poultry bans on Pakistan and Indonesia, bringing to eight the number of countries whose bird products have been banned from the region's largest economy.
China stopped such shipments from Cambodia, Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam in an effort to prevent the disease from spreading to its poultry.
Laos and Taiwan also have reported the virus, but the mainland has not mentioned poultry bans from those areas.
Health Canada has issued an advisory, warning Canadians living in or travelling to Asia to stay away from live poultry markets. As well, infectious disease experts at Toronto and Vancouver airports will be on the lookout for sick passengers, the department said.
In Thailand, the Public Health Ministry confirmed that a six-year-old boy died from the disease Tuesday, becoming the country's second fatality and the region's eighth. Thai officials awaited lab results on five other deaths believed linked to the virus, meaning the toll could reach 13.
Thailand's first death, announced Monday, was another six-year-old boy, who carried a dying chicken to a butcher.
In Laos, a sample taken from a chicken farm near the capital, Vientiane, tested positive for the disease, said Singkham Phounvisay, director general of the country's Livestock Department.
The tests were conducted after hundreds of chickens died. The results were known Monday, but the exact strain of the virus has not been identified, he said.
Agriculture Ministry officials were expected to begin slaughtering about 3,000 chickens at a farm on the capital's outskirts Tuesday. The carcasses then would be burned.
A joint document circulated at a meeting of Laotian government and UN representatives last week said chicken farms in other parts of the country had been hit by the disease.
The scope of this year's outbreak has widened alarmingly, with countries reporting new outbreaks in poultry stocks over the past three days.
The other countries reporting some strain of bird flu include Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and Taiwan. Some countries claim their version of bird flu is milder than the one that has jumped to humans.
Pakistan said strains of the disease killed millions of chickens, but had not infected humans.
'We are safe,' Pakistan Health Minister Mohammed Nasir Khan said Tuesday. 'There is right now no need to panic in Pakistan.'
Tens of millions of poultry across Asia have been infected in recent weeks, prompting mass slaughters of chickens at farms to contain the virus. South Korea alone has killed 24 million chickens and ducks.
WHO said the virus has mutated since an outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997, when six people were killed in the first documented case of the virus jumping to humans and the deadliest episode until this year's outbreak.
The mutations complicate the search for a vaccine. The virus strain isolated from the 1997 outbreak can no longer be used to produce the medicine, WHO said.
Scientists believe people get the disease through contact with sick birds. Although there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission in the latest outbreak, health officials are concerned the disease might mutate further and link with regular influenza to create a form that could trigger the next human flu pandemic.
Here is a look at the bird flu spreading through Asia.
WHAT IS IT: A form of influenza believed to strike all birds, although domestic poultry are believed especially prone. It also has jumped to humans, but no human-to-human transmission has been reported.
WHERE IS IT: China, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Laos. Pakistan says it has detected bird flu, although the World Health Organization has not yet confirmed an outbreak. Thailand and Vietnam have reported human cases.
HOW MANY PEOPLE AFFECTED: Possibly 13 people - eight confirmed cases and five suspected cases - have died. Vietnam has confirmed eight human cases, six of whom have died. Thailand has confirmed three cases, including two deaths. Thailand says five other suspected patients also have died.
HOW IT'S PASSED: Infected birds spread the virus through saliva, feces and nasal secretions.
So far, only humans with direct contact with sick birds have caught the disease. But scientists are worried bird flu could link with regular human influenza, mutate, and become a deadly new virus and trigger a pandemic.
SYMPTOMS IN BIRDS: Loss of appetite, ruffled feathers, fever, weakness, diarrhea, excessive thirst, swelling. If the strain is virulent, mortality rate can range from 50 per cent to 100 per cent.
SYMPTOMS IN HUMANS: Fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, eye infections, pneumonia, acute respiratory distress, viral pneumonia.
OTHER HUMAN OUTBREAKS: Bird flu was first reported in humans in Hong Kong in 1997. Since then, it's popped up mostly in Asia, although the Netherlands reported an outbreak, including human cases, in 2003.
TREATMENT FOR HUMANS: The World Health Organization says this year's strain is resistant to cheaper anti-viral drugs, amantadine and rimantadine. Scientists are exploring more expensive treatments.
WHO also recommends quarantining sick people.
FOOD SAFETY: There's no evidence the virus is being passed through eating chicken products, health experts say. Heat kills viruses, and WHO says chicken products should be cooked thoroughly at temperatures of at least 70 C (158 F). WHO also says people should wash their hands after handling poultry and ensure poultry carcasses do not contaminate other objects.
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