AR-News: Governments Across Southeast Asia Work to Contain Bird Flu

[Andrew Gach]

January 26, 2004
Governments Across Southeast Asia Work to Contain Bird Flu
By KEITH BRADSHER
     
BANGKOK, Monday, Jan. 26 - Provincial governments in west central Thailand dispatched hundreds of soldiers and prisoners on Sunday to slaughter chickens in flocks infected with avian influenza, as hospitals across Southeast Asia remained on high alert for further human cases of the disease.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand visited farmers and promised government compensation for the millions of chickens being killed in an effort to stamp out bird flu before it spreads further, and a one-year suspension of farmers' debts. But he stopped short of saying how much compensation would be paid.

The government of Vietnam has been paying as little as 10 percent of the market price as workers there slaughter chickens in or near infected flocks. Farmers there are estimated to have quickly sold at markets close to a million chickens that were supposed to be destroyed.

Viroj Na Bangchang, the president and founder of the Consumer Force Association of Thailand, an advocacy group, said anything short of full market compensation for farmers would cause serious financial harm in rural areas. "They don't have anything left if you kill all the chickens," he said.

Workers in protective gear are netting chickens, putting them in plastic bags and burying them alive in 15-foot-deep pits. A senior Thai agriculture official said that 9.1 million chickens had been culled since November, but that laboratory tests had provided definitive proof only late last week of the presence of bird flu in a small area of one province, Suphan Buri. On Sunday, the tests showed that the disease was in an adjacent area of the next province, Kanchanaburi, the official said.

Indonesia reported Sunday that millions of chickens in that country had also died of avian influenza, a further sign that it was spreading. South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Hong Kong had previously confirmed the disease in birds, while Taiwan had reported a less dangerous strain of bird flu in some chickens there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/26/health/26BIRD.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=
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