US, France, China jump-start bird flu efforts
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-03 09:11

NEW OUTBREAKS

Thailand reported a new outbreak of bird flu in poultry on Wednesday and officials said the illegal movement of birds, especially fighting cocks and ducks, might be spreading the virus.

Laboratory results confirmed H5N1 in chickens and pigeons in the central province of Ang Thong.

Six of the seven infected provinces were clustered in central Thailand, with the other, Kalasin, in the northeast where fighting cocks might have caught the deadly disease from those in the infected central region, livestock officials said.

Health officials have expressed concerns that migratory birds could carry the virus from the edges of Europe to Africa where they fear it could spread quickly.

"The threat is a real one," said Dr. Karim Tounkara, an expert on animal resources in the African Union.

"If we have cases of this disease, it will be real havoc for the continent because the mortality rate (among birds) can reach 80 percent. Once the domestic birds are infected, then the virus spreads like a fire in the bush," he told Reuters at a bird flu meeting in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

In New York, Wildlife Conservation Society veterinarian William Karesh said he did not anticipate migratory birds spreading the flu to North America since there was little mingling of birds from the two hemispheres in the Arctic.

"I think it's going to fly here, but in an airplane carrying infected people," Karesh told a meeting sponsored by Time magazine.

"It won't come to North America in wild birds."

Karesh echoed recommendations from U.N. officials who have advocated spending more cash on controlling H5N1 in birds. "Go upstream and contain it at the source," Karesh advised.

There has been real concern in Europe but reports suggested poultry sales were recovering from a sharp fall last month.

In France, home to Europe's largest poultry sector with an annual turnover of 6 billion euros, sales were still reported to be down although there were signs the slide was slowing.