A THAI man was identified yesterday as the 67th victim of the bird flu virus that is spreading around the world as EU health ministers met for emergency talks on how to tackle a likely pandemic.
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, and her counterparts met in Hertfordshire to discuss how best to prepare for a worldwide outbreak. Plans include a two-day pandemic simulation, to be carried out in Europe within a month, to test the EU’s readiness.
Concern about the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu centres on fears that it may mutate into a form that passes easily among people, creating a pandemic that may kill millions.
Possible clusters of bird flu among members of one family in Indonesia have raised concern among health experts that this feared mutation may be happening. Officials confirmed yesterday that a father and son are currently being treated at a Jakarta hospital for symptoms of the virus, but the diagnosis has not been confirmed.
All the human deaths from avian flu have so far been in Asia but the H5N1 strain, carried by migrating birds, was detected this month in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.
In Brussels, the EU said that more tests on samples from dead birds were needed to determine whether Greece had become the first EU country to be hit by the virus.
Preliminary tests on samples from turkeys on the Aegean island of Oinousses were negative for H5N1 but it may take several days to be confirmed by the Veterinary Laboratory Agency in Weybridge.
At the meeting of EU health ministers, also attended by Markos Kyprianou, the European Commissioner for Health, officials discussed containment strategies but urged the public to stay calm as the virus posed no immediate risk to people.Delegates from Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Croatia also attended. "The World Health Organisation confirmed that there had been no increase in the risk of pandemic flu," Ms Hewitt said.
Mr Kyprianou, addressing a press conference in London last night, outlined plans for the preparedness exercise, called Common Ground, which he said would focus on "communication between key players in the event of a pandemic".
The simulation is not expected to involve health workers. Officials in command centres across Europe will react to imaginary scenarios, fed to them through the EU’s Early Warning and Response System and via EU-wide teleconferences.
It will not involve any "real world" mobilisation of emergency services and health staff, but will focus on decision-making at command centre level. A day after launching contingency plans for the NHS, Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, reiterated that a pandemic was inevitable but emphasised that preparations were in hand.
Thai officials said that Bang-on Benpad, a 48-year-old farmer, had become the first Thai killed by the disease in a year, and the first human fatality since an Indonesian woman died last month. The virus has killed at least forty-four people in Vietnam, thirteen in Thailand, six in Indonesia and four Cambodians. The Thai man, who killed and then ate an infected chicken, was the country’s 13th victim. His son, 7, who had also been in close contact with chickens, is being tested at a Bangkok hospital. The European Commission extended a ban on the import of pet birds and feathers to most of Russia after a case was confirmed in a village 200 miles south of Moscow.
Charles Schumer, a US senator, said that Roche, the Swiss pharmaceuticals company, had agreed to increase the number of production licenses for its Tamiflu drug, the most effective antiviral against H5N1.
The Chinese revealed that they had culled almost 100,000 birds after 2,600 birds, mostly chickens, were killed by the flu virus on a farm in its northern Inner Mongolia region. There were no reported human cases. Controls were ordered on travellers who now face infra-red body temperature checks and shoe sterilisation.
In Vietnam, which has been vaccinating millions of poultry, it was reported that 180 ducks had the virus, the first cases since July. Taiwan confirmed its first case since 2003. The virus was found in birds smuggled from China aboard a freighter in the Taiwan Strait. All the birds were killed.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand awaited test results on Friday on another suspected bird flu patient after a resurgence of the killer virus in Asia, although experts said fears of the virus starting to mutate in Indonesia were overblown.
A day after tests confirmed a 48-year-old man as Thailand's 13th victim, doctors said it was highly likely his sick 7-year-old son also had the virus, which has spread steadily from Asia to Europe in under two years. Over 60 people in four Asian countries have died of bird flu in this period.
"There is a high possibility he has caught the bird flu virus because he had direct contact with the infected chicken," Disease Control Department chief Thawat Suntarajarn told Reuters.
"But the tests showed negative because he was given Tamiflu right away after he had symptoms," he said, referring to the anti-flu drug made by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche which has been shown to reduce H5N1 bird flu symptoms.
Possible clusters of bird flu among members of one family in Indonesia have raised fears that the dreaded mutation of H5N1 into a form that passes easily among humans -- sparking a pandemic that could kill millions -- may already be happening.
A father and son are being treated at a Jakarta hospital for symptoms of the virus but the diagnosis has not been confirmed, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that even if it was, such cases could result merely from normal family contact.
"It doesn't mean mutation," Georg Petersen, WHO's Indonesia representative, told Reuters.
All human deaths from avian flu have so far been in Asia but the H5N1 strain was detected this month in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania. Further tests are being carried out in Europe on a bird from Greece.
"VERY GRAVE" WINTER LOOMS
Even as it marches westwards, tracking the flight paths of migratory birds, the virus is flaring up again in east and southeast Asia, the most likely epicentre of a human pandemic, according to the WHO.
Vietnam, the worst-hit country, has started culling birds again in the Mekong Delta after detecting its first cases in poultry since July.
The WHO has said 61 people have died of bird flu since it resurfaced in 2003 after a brief outbreak in the 1990s -- 41 in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, four in Cambodia and three in Indonesia.
With the looming of winter -- the season when the virus seems to thrive -- China has vowed to do its utmost to stop the virus spreading to people shortly after a new outbreak was reported at a poultry farm north of Beijing.
"China is prone to bird flu outbreaks in autumn and winter. The situation is very grave," state radio quoted Vice Premier Liangyu Hui as saying on Thursday. Xinhua news agency said he was passing instructions straight from President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao.
In Brussels, the European Union adopted fresh measures to fight the virus, banning live birds from markets or exhibitions without permission and urging states to keep wild flocks away from poultry feed.
The European Commission said a committee of EU veterinary experts had agreed on the measures, which included vaccinating birds in zoos and extending a ban on bird and feather imports to cover much of Russia.
Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said member states had drawn up plans to deal with a possible pandemic and arrange stockpiles or orders for antiviral drugs, but said the risk to the general public was low.
"The appearance of flu in birds in Europe does not increase the risk of a pandemic," he told a news conference after an informal meeting of EU health ministers near London.
France and Italy tried to reassure consumers it was safe to eat poultry because imports from affected areas were banned, while Germany ordered poultry to be kept in pens and Poland said domestic fowl must be kept indoors to prevent contact with migrating birds.
(additional reporting by Panarat Thempgumpanat, Dean Yates in JAKARTA, Chris Buckley in BEIJING and bureaux in Europe)
Hong Kong's cross-over points with mainland China might be sealed in the event of such an outbreak, the South China Morning Post reported Friday.
"If it is proven to be human-to-human transmission, then we have to be very careful and we might have to close the border" with the mainland, Hong Kong Secretary for Health York Chow was reported as saying.
Hong Kong has been a hotbed of health alerts in recent years, including the outbreak of the SARS disease in 2003, which killed almost 300 people there.
The H5N1 bird flu strain also infected 18 people in Hong in 1997, six of whom died.
Consequently, Hong Kong's entire poultry population, estimated at around 1.5 million birds, was destroyed within three days. This is thought to have averted a pandemic.
EU discussions
Europe's top health officials met Thursday to discuss ways to thwart the spread of bird flu as the deadly H5N1 virus, which has now hit the continent, reared its head again in east and Southeast Asia.
After the talks outside London, Britain's Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said the risk posed to people in Europe was "very low."
"The World Health Organization confirmed that there had been no increase in the risk of pandemic flu," she told reporters.
"But of course we have to ensure we are prepared in each of our countries."
Earlier Thursday, Thailand reported that a farmer had died from bird flu, the first victim to die in the country in more than a year.
The 48-year-old farmer, in Kanchanaburi province, west of the capital Bangkok, was the 13th person to die in Thailand. The man died after contracted the virus after slaughtering and eating an infected chicken.
No humans in Europe are known to have contracted bird flu during the current outbreak, but 61 people in Asia have died of the disease since 2003.
Also in Asia, Taiwan's Council of Agriculture said Thursday it had found birds infected with the lethal H5N1 flu in a container smuggled from China, the first case on the island since late 2003.
Taiwan coastguards seized the Panama-registered cargo on October 14, and tests confirmed about 1,000 birds were infected with the H5N1 virus, Reuters quoted an official as saying.
On Wednesday, China's official Xinhua news agency reported 2,600 birds had been found dead of the H5N1 strain in the country's northern grasslands, according to The Associated Press.
The H5N1 strain, which first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea, and has spread to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia and Europe.
Most of the human deaths have been linked to contact with sick birds. But experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that can be transmitted between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
With the bird flu virus encroaching on Europe, health ministers from 25 European Union nations met to talk about how to keep the virus from jumping to humans, and how to respond if it does.
Several EU countries are already slaughtering suspect birds and Britain's chief medical officer Liam Donaldson described the possibility of a human flu pandemic "public health enemy No. 1 and we are on the march against it."
As EU ministers met Thursday afternoon, Blair was to have held private talks with government ministers and the head of the National Farmers' Union.
Adding to the worry is confirmation from Russia's agriculture ministry that the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus has been found in poultry south of Moscow.
The EU later said it was banning the import of pet birds and feathers from Siberia in eastern Russia.
While further tests are needed to confirm the finding and determine whether it is the same H5N1 strain that has decimated stocks in Asia, the discovery in the Tula region, 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Moscow, would mark the first time the lethal strain has appeared in European Russia, west of the Ural Mountains. (Full story).
It suggests the virus might be spreading from Siberia to the shores of the Mediterranean. Amid the concern Germany ordered farmers to keep poultry indoors as a precaution and British farmers were taking similar measures.
Macedonia next?
Tests confirmed the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in a second location in Romania's eastern Danube Delta region, a government official said Wednesday.
Romanian authorities have killed all farm birds in the area and finished disinfecting the areas, including people's houses and yards.
In Brussels, an EU official said there was a suspicion of bird flu in Macedonia.
Samples from a dead bird were sent from Macedonia to London for testing after a large number of birds died in the city of Bitola near the border with Greece, a member of Macedonia's parliament said Tuesday.
The disease has already affected birds in at least two other European countries, Romania and Greece, as well as neighboring Turkey.
A ban on poultry imports from Turkey and Romania was introduced October 10.
Mideast, Africa at risk
A U.N. agency warned that the risk of bird flu spreading to the Middle East and Africa has markedly increased following the confirmation of the Romanian and Turkish outbreaks.
Health officials said they would also hold a simulation exercise of a flu pandemic by end of year to improve preparedness.
However, the EU's disease control agency downplayed fears of bird flu spreading to humans on the continent.
The agency gave two tips for people to minimize the risk of infection: do not touch dead or sick birds, and only eat well-cooked eggs or poultry.
Greek authorities began Wednesday the systematic disinfection of a farm on a remote Aegean Sea island but a European Commission spokeswoman said Thursday a first test of a sample had found no bird flu but further tests were needed.
On Tuesday, Bulgaria banned the imports of live fowl, poultry products and eggs from Greece, as well as the transit transportation of poultry loads that have passed through the territories of Turkey, Greece, and Romania.
'Global threat'
EU foreign ministers have declared the spread of bird flu from Asia into Europe a "global threat" requiring international action.
They issued a statement Tuesday saying bird flu posed a serious, global health threat if it shifted from birds to humans and one that required "a coordinated international reaction."
European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told reporters that because the flu may be carried by migratory birds, other European countries could experience outbreaks.
He warned that the 25 EU member countries do not have enough anti-viral drugs on hand to fight a human pandemic.
The World Health Organization recommends that governments hold in reserve sufficient anti-viral drugs to treat 25 per cent of their populations. Kyprianou said "more than half" of the EU countries are not yet prepared.
Swiss drug maker Roche, pressed to raise output of antiviral flu drug Tamiflu, said it would consider allowing rival firms and governments to produce it under licence for emergency pandemic use. A Dutch company said it was working on a vaccine.
Besides the human danger, countries visited by bird flu in its various forms can face grave economic losses. The milder H5N7 strain struck the Netherlands in 2003, prompting slaughter of 30 million birds and losses estimated at &euro500 million.
CNN Producer Stephanie Halasz contributed to this report.
Bird flu has killed a 48-year-old man in Thailand, the country's first human death in a year, officials said Thursday, as the deadly H5N1 virus that has now hit Europe reared its head again in East and Southeast Asia.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a news conference the victim had slaughtered and eaten an infected bird in Kanchanaburi province, which reported new outbreaks of avian influenza this week in birds around 100 kilometres west of the capital.
The latest death came as veterinary officials slaughtered poultry in a small village in central Russia Thursday as fears grew that the bird flu that has swept through parts of Siberia could reach Moscow.
Officials put Yandovka, a remote village about 350 kilometres south of the Russian capital, under quarantine after villagers reported the mass illness and deaths of their fowl.
The European Union said later Thursday that it was extending a ban on the import of pet birds and feathers to cover most of Russia.
EU spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen added that preliminary tests by its reference laboratory on a Greek island bird flu sample were negative for the H5 strain, but said more tests were needed.
Confirmation required
Thai health officials said several tests were needed before the man could be confirmed as the country's 13th official victim.
"The first lab results came out negative but we tested it several times and it confirmed it was positive," said Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general at the Department of Disease Control.
Most of the 60 human deaths reported so far have been linked to contact with sick birds, but experts say the virus could mutate at any time into a form that is more easily transmitted from person to person.
With H5N1 also discovered in Turkey and Romania, Europe is readying itself for a possible major outbreak.
Britain said it planned to buy enough vaccine to protect the entire population in the event of a pandemic, while Germany said it would confine all poultry to pens to prevent contact with wild migratory birds believed by some to carrying the virus from Asia.
Threat of spread to Africa
Sudan has taken a precautionary measure of halting all poultry imports, totalling 35 per cent of its consumption, to prevent the spread of bird flu after the UN food agency said the disease could move to East Africa, a senior official said Thursday.
"This is a precautionary measure and of course it will adversely effect the poultry industry in Sudan," said Ahmed Mustafa Hassan, under-secretary at the ministry of animal resources.
"Our poultry industry is not very well-developed so we rely heavily on imports," he said.
He said the risk was serious in Sudan as migratory birds from the north pass through the areas along the Nile, where most of Sudan's population lives.
The arrival of bird flu in Turkey and Romania suggests it is being carried by migratory birds, some of which pass through east Africa, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Source: China Daily
Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Australians shouldn't panic after quarantine officials found pigeons imported from Canada had been exposed to bird flu, Prime Minister John Howard said.
Three of 102 pigeons held at a quarantine facility tested positive to avian influenza antibodies, government officials said late yesterday. The exposed birds will be killed and the remainder returned to Canada.
``There is a risk but we shouldn't panic,'' Howard said in an interview on Melbourne radio station 3AW. ``We're taking all the precautions we can.''
Australia is spending more than A$180 million ($136 million) over five years to protect the nation from outbreaks of pandemic influenza. The government is also supporting the development of a bird-flu vaccine by Melbourne-based CSL Ltd.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 60 people in Asia and resulted in the slaughter of more than 140 million birds. The World Health Organization has said the risk of a pandemic, threatening the lives of as many as 7.4 million people, is the highest in more than 35 years.
Australia has banned the importation of birds from Canada until it is explained how the pigeons were approved for export.
``They did approve them and I would like to know why,'' Howard said.
Indonesian authorities had covered up cases of bird flu for almost two years because of lobbying from its poultry industry, Melbourne's Age newspaper said today, citing Indonesia's former national director of animal health, Tri Satya Putri Naipospos.
Howard said he would seek more information about the report.
Eight of the 1,037 birds that were smuggled into Taiwan from China on a ship have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, but an outbreak is unlikely as they have been seized and destroyed, officials said yesterday.
At a press conference yesterday, Council of Agriculture (COA) officials said that eight of 276 dead birds discovered on a Panama-registered ship by the Taiwan Coast Guard in Taichung Harbor on Oct. 14 were tested and found to be carrying the H5N1 virus.
The 1,037 birds on board were smuggled from China last week, raising concerns over the risk of bird flu being brought to Taiwan.
Officials said they did not know where the ship was heading, but had received information about it from an undisclosed source.
Nineteen types of birds were found on board the ship, with three types -- myna birds, black-naped orioles and Chinese nightingales -- found to be carrying the H5N1 virus.
According to Chao Parn-hwa, director of the Animal Health Research Institute, eight of the 276 dead birds were sent to the institute for inspection.
All eight were found to have the H5N1 virus, Chao said.
Meanwhile, noting that the birds were smuggled from China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last night called on Beijing to adopt transparent measures in its actions against bird-flu to avoid becoming a "loophole" in other countries' efforts to combat outbreaks.
In Taichung, one crewmember from the ship, a Chinese national, is in quarantine and is being interrogated. The remaining 24 crewmembers left Taiwan with the ship on Monday.
Officials said that the quarantined crewmember has no symptoms at the moment and is taking Tamiflu, the most effective bird-flu medication available.
A 40-person team that searched the ship and destroyed the birds was not quarantined, as team members had worn protective gear and did not come in direct contact with the infected birds, officials said. But they are being monitored as a precaution, the officials added.
Watson Sung, director-general of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said that the bureau will combat animal smuggling and advises the public to call 0800-039-131 or 118 to report smuggling to the coast guard.
Smugglers face up to three years imprisonment and a NT$150,000 fine. Officials are considering tightening the smuggling law.
"All the birds on board the ship have been destroyed. Bird flu has not spread into Taiwan and we are not an infected zone," Sung said.
Meanwhile, as part of efforts to combat a possible avian flu outbreak, Taipei Municipal Hospital yesterday announced the establishment of a "vanguard team" of 108 hospital staff that will be stationed at Hoping Hospital should an outbreak occur.
The 108 doctors, nurses and other hospital staff from six municipal hospitals will be stationed at Hoping Hospital, which has been designated the anti-avian flu center for the city.
Officials hope to gain from the hospital's experience during the SARS outbreak of 2003.
At a ceremony to announce the team's establishment, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou said the city has been working on the preventative measures for more than six months and he hoped that with the team, the city would be able to prevent situations such as the SARS outbreak from happening.
WASHINGTON - The maker of the antiviral pill Tamiflu has agreed to help U.S. generic manufacturers increase production of the drug, which is in short supply because of fears of a worldwide bird flu epidemic, lawmakers said today.
Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the Swiss company Hoffman-La Roche Inc. has agreed to enter into negotiations with generic manufacturers to significantly expand U.S. production.
Tamiflu is not a vaccine, but if administered early, it can reduce the severity of the illness and help prevent its spread.
The government has stockpiled enough Tamiflu to treat just over 4 million people. But in the event of a massive outbreak, 67 million Americans could become infected. Tamiflu would be a last line of defense because vaccines for a new and virulent flu strain could take months to develop.
"The bottleneck on Tamiflu has basically been broken and there will be production," Schumer said after he and Graham met with Roche CEO George Abercrombie. "The problem was never cost."
The Bush administration is trying to finish work on a flu pandemic preparedness plan that could require billions of dollars in new government spending and unprecedented public health efforts on the part of state and local officials.
Some Democrats are criticizing the administration for what they see as a lack of attention to the threat, and drawing comparisons to the weak response to Hurricane Katrina.
Medical experts are concerned that an aggressive flu that has plagued birds in Asia and is now showing up in Europe could mutate and become easily transmissible among humans. Because people do not have immunity to the relatively new H5N1 strain, the consequences could be dire. But no one can predict when a pandemic might break out, and government scientists say it is not likely to happen this flu season.
The senators said that Roche has agreed to meet with four major U.S. generic manufacturers and to license them to produce Tamiflu, provided the companies are capable of turning out large quantities of the drug. Roche would receive fees from the generic firms, and the government would stockpile the medications.
The four companies are Teva Pharmaceuticals, Barr Laboratories, Mylan Laboratories and Ranbaxy Laboratories. Schumer said all have expressed an interest in producing Tamiflu.
Abercrombie left the meeting without talking to reporters, but later said in a statement that Roche wants to do "whatever is needed to prepare for a pandemic."
He said Roche wants to be sure that other companies can produce "substantial amounts of Tamiflu for pandemic use in a timely manner in accordance with appropriate quality specifications, safety and regulatory guidelines."
Even with generic drug makers pitching in, it could take a year to ramp up U.S. production, said Kim Elliott, deputy director of the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit public health organization.
"It's not something that you can just turn on and Tamiflu pills will start popping out," said Elliott.
Dozens of ingredients are involved and the manufacturing process is slow and complicated, she said. Financially, it would only be worth the effort for a company that has the ability to make a large quantity of the medication, she said.
Tamiflu has been on the market several years as a treatment for the garden variety flu. Sales have soared since some lab tests found that it is effective against H5N1. However, other studies have shown that the virus can build up a resistance to the medication.
The federal government has set a goal of stockpiling enough of the drug to treat 20 million people. But Washington moved slowly to order the drug from Roche and now faces worldwide competition for a scarce supply.
After meeting with the two senators, Abercrombie met with Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt. Christina Pearson, Leavitt's spokeswoman, said the senators' efforts complemented what the administration is trying to do to increase supplies of Tamiflu.
And she rejected criticism that the administration has been too slow to face the bird flu threat.
"In our 24-hour culture, people forget that Secretary Leavitt has talked about this since he got here," said Pearson. "There have been meetings with the president for a long time on this. We are putting together a plan, and we are making it happen. There is a lot of action taking place around this."
ROME, Oct. 20 -- In Europe, the advance of bird flu from Asia is being monitored like a military invasion of Genghis Khan's hordes. Newspapers and television stations display maps with arrows representing migratory bird routes. Weak points in the continent's defenses -- neighboring countries with substandard poultry hygiene and locations of outbreaks -- are sometimes highlighted in red.
The latest red state is Macedonia, which followed Turkey and Romania in discovering and destroying sick poultry that apparently caught the flu from voyaging birds.
The European Union on Thursday took new steps to contain the disease, widening a ban on imports of pet birds and feathers from Russia, where culling of infected poultry continued. The 25-country group also moved to ban bird markets and exhibits and to make farmers move poultry into barns to prevent contact with wildfowl. At the Berlin Zoo, workers penned in ducks and an Australian emu as a precaution.
But there is little agreement about the actual danger. The H5N1 virus that gives birds the disease does not easily spread to people, and so far there are no human cases in Europe. In East Asia, the epicenter of the outbreak, more than 60 people have died of bird flu, including a man in Thailand whose death was reported Thursday.
The threat to humans would be serious only if the virus develops into a form that can spread from person to person.
In the meantime, European officials alternate between expressions of calm and apprehension. Typical mixed signals were sent out Thursday.
In Switzerland, Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin, who is in charge of health issues, criticized "hysteria" surrounding bird flu and said it was virtually impossible for people to catch it. In Luxembourg, the European Union issued a statement warning of "global threats" and appealed for an "international coordinated response."
France has stockpiled 15 million doses of the antiviral medication Tamiflu for use in the event of an outbreak. Gilles Brucker, director general of the National Institute for Public Health Surveillance, said 100 million face masks are in storage and another 100 million have been ordered for delivery by the end of the year.
French health authorities hospitalized two people suspected of contracting the disease, but then released them after tests showed no infection. The most recent case was a man who had recently returned from Turkey, where he had come into contact with poultry. He developed a high fever and severe cough five days after returning to France, Brucker said.
Italy has 150,000 doses of Tamiflu on hand and has ordered 6 million more, said Health Minister Francesco Storace. He said the doses would not arrive immediately and also noted a medical debate over whether Tamiflu would be effective.
Italy assured consumers that poultry was not infected and that the disease could not spread if the meat was cooked well. The government ordered all poultry sold in the country to be labeled at its point of origin to let consumers decide whether they want to buy imports.
The government has also been debating whether to ban hunting on the grounds that a downed duck or goose could bring the virus to earth. Hunters objected -- it's the shooting season in Italy -- so Storace decided to ban only the use of live birds as lures.
In London, the European Union's health commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, said it would be wise to have enough antiviral medicine to cover a quarter of the 450 million people in the union. Belgium's Health Ministry suggested that the E.U. buy antivirals and not depend on individual governments to purchase them.
Frontline countries, meanwhile, are trying to contain the spread of the virus by themselves. Bulgaria banned imports of live birds and poultry products from Turkey and Romania, and Hungary is disinfecting all trucks that cross into its territory from Romania.
Consumers appear to be taking their own precautions. Chicken sales in Italy have plummeted because buyers fear that handling the birds might cause infection, retailers say. "Sales of chicken have dropped a ton, I would say 50 percent," said Pino Russini, 37, head butcher at the Campo dei Fiori Carni open-air meat and poultry stand in Rome.
On Thursday, the stand carried a big sign on the counter saying "We Know Our Chickens." The National Aviculture Union said chicken sales were off 40 percent.
In France, the Federation of Commerce and Distribution, which services major supermarkets, said sales of poultry products had dropped 20 percent since last weekend, according to the newspaper Le Monde.
"It's not that it's big -- it's enormous," said Frederic Simonneau, 31, a second-generation butcher in the Marais district of Paris. "This week I've sold half of what I sold two weeks ago. Everyone out there who deals in poultry is crying."
But not all Parisians are giving up poulet . Sandrine Besnard, who runs a sandwich shop near the Paris Opera, said she's seen no change in customer demand. Open for lunch Thursday, she turned to her next customer in line: "Now what will it be today?"
"Chicken," said the smartly dressed woman. "On whole wheat, not white."
Moore reported from Paris. Researcher Gretchen Hoff in Paris contributed to this report.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - A 48-year-old Thai man has become the 67th person known to have been killed by a bird flu virus that has been moving steadily from Asia into Europe since re-emerging in South Korea in 2003, officials said on Thursday.
Concern about the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu centers on scientists' fears that it may mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, sparking a pandemic that may kill millions.
Possible clusters of bird flu among members of one family in Indonesia have raised concern among health experts that this feared mutation may already be happening.
"With the increase of clusters the possibility has to be thoroughly examined that the virus might have changed and could possibly spread from human to human," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari was quoted as saying by the state news agency.
A father and son are being treated at a Jakarta hospital for symptoms of the virus but the diagnosis has not been confirmed.
All the human deaths from avian flu have so far been in Asia but the H5N1 strain, carried by migrating birds, was detected this month in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.
In Brussels, the European Union adopted fresh measures to fight the virus, banning live birds from markets or exhibitions without permission and urging states to keep wild flocks away from poultry feed.
The European Commission said in a statement a committee of EU veterinary experts had agreed on the measures, which also included recommendations for vaccinating birds in zoos.
Both France and Italian poultry producers tried to reassure consumers after a food industry body said poultry sales had fallen by 20 percent because of fears of bird flu.
"There is absolutely no danger from eating poultry products in France," France's Farm Ministry said in a statement. "The Asian (bird flu) virus is not present in France."
"Our country is self-sufficient -- it produces more than it consumes and it does not import from areas hit by the virus," said Aldo Muraro, head of the Italian poultry producers union.
"And -- as international and Italian experts have said, the virus is transmitted through contact with infected animals, not by eating chicken," Muraro added.
Germany has ordered poultry to be kept in pens and Poland has said domestic fowl must be kept indoors to prevent contact with migrating birds.
COPING WITH PANDEMIC
In Ottawa, Canada's top public health expert said the world was both better and worse equipped to cope with a pandemic now than it was for the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed some 50 million people worldwide.
"... we are better prepared, we have better knowledge, we are -- at least in our part of the world -- healthier than people were in 1918," chief public health officer David Butler-Jones told a news conference.
"The challenges lie in the rapidity of travel and ability of diseases to move quickly around the world..." he said.
Major drug companies have drawn up plans to produce large quantities of vaccine as soon as possible after any mutation of the virus into a form that moves easily between humans.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra told a news conference the latest human death was in Kanchanaburi province, which reported new outbreaks of avian influenza this week.
"The guy was infected with bird flu because he took a sick chicken, slaughtered it and then ate it," Thaksin said. Contact with infected chickens or ducks is a known method of transmission.
Bang-on Benpad was the first Thai killed by the disease in a year, and the first human fatality since an Indonesian woman died last month. The virus has killed at least 44 people in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, six in Indonesia and four Cambodians.
Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general at the Department of Disease Control, said the dead man's son, who had been in close contact with chickens, had so far not tested positive.
The H5N1 strain appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea and spread through Asia to Europe's borders.
In Africa, Sudan and Tanzania joined Kenya and Comoros in banning some or all poultry imports. But experts say migrating birds could bring bird flu to East Africa's Rift Valley lakes, where the rural poor are already hit by AIDS and malaria.
While countries in Europe and Africa struggle to keep the disease out, Asian nations battled new outbreaks.
Vietnam, which has been vaccinating millions of poultry, reported its first outbreak in poultry since July, slaughtering 180 ducks in Ninh Quoi A commune.
In China, where there have been no human cases, the Foreign Ministry confirmed H5N1 in 2,600 birds at a poultry farm in Inner Mongolia, but said the outbreak had been wiped out.
Aphaluck Bhatiasevi of the World Health Organization in Beijing told Reuters China had culled 91,100 birds and vaccinated 166,000.
Taiwan's Agriculture Council said it had found infected birds in a container of rare birds smuggled from China, the island's first case since late 2003.
(Additional reporting by bureaux in Beijing, Belgrade, Brussels, Dar Es Salaam, Hanoi, Jakarta, Khartoum, London, Ottawa, Paris, Rome and Taipei)
JAKARTA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Possible cases of bird flu among family members in Indonesia do not mean the deadly virus is mutating but could be caused by close contact normal in families, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
"It doesn't mean mutation," Georg Petersen, WHO's Indonesia representative, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Concern about the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu centres on scientists' fears it may mutate into a form that passes easily among humans, sparking a pandemic that may kill millions.
On Thursday, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the possibility bird flu was infecting more than one member of a family could mean the virus had changed and was possibly spreading from human to human in Indonesia.
She was referring to a father and son being treated in Jakarta who both had symptoms of the virus.
Petersen said preliminary tests showed they had influenza, but the type was unclear. The Health Ministry said it might announce test results later on Friday.
"What we know is that from one clear case in Thailand and probably in other cases there has been close family contact and this is why it could have gone from one person to another," Petersen said.
"It's not what we call extensive human-to-human transmission ... It doesn't mean mutation."
In Thailand, a mother was killed by the virus last year after cradling her dying daughter all night.
There have been five confirmed cases of bird flu in humans in Indonesia since July, comprising three deaths and two people who were sick. A few of Indonesia's positive and suspected bird flu cases have involved members of the same family.
"In around 80 percent of cases (in Asia) so far there is obvious contact with sick birds. That means that there are few cases where we have no clear exposure history, either because the case came to knowledge late or information is incomplete or we really don't know," Petersen said.
More than 60 people have died from bird flu in Southeast Asia, the most likely epicentre of any human pandemic, but the virus has also been moving steadily from Asia into birds in Europe since re-emerging in South Korea in 2003.
Some health experts worry Indonesia is not showing enough urgency in tackling bird flu.
Indeed, Indonesian officials "covered up and then neglected" an epidemic of avian influenza in poultry for two years, allowing it to spread among flocks and then to people, the Washington Post said on Thursday.
The newspaper quoted an Indonesian microbiologist as saying authorities argued about whether the virus killing chickens was in fact H5N1, and then tried to deal with it quietly.
As a result, the virus spread, with little public word until it began infecting people, the paper said.
In reply, Indonesia's agriculture minister told the newspaper the government considered bird flu a matter of great concern.
A boat from mainland China smuggling chickens and birds into Taiwan, and migratory birds that stop at the various wetlands around the island.
Taiwan's worst fears of becoming infected by the bird flu was brought to life as government agencies held an exercise yesterday to simulate the possible scenarios of the virus spreading to the island and practice measures to counter the disease.
"As Taiwan is situated near countries that have been infected by the bird flu as well as on the path of migratory birds heading south from Siberia, it is very possible that the bird flu can spread to Taiwan via migratory birds or animals smuggled from abroad," read a statement by the Council of Agriculture.
The theme of the exercise revolved around the communication between government agencies, the surveillance of the disease, safety and protection measures for workers coming into contact with the virus, and the processing of infected chickens.
One of the scenarios played out at the exercise was an outbreak of the bird flu at a chicken farm after migratory birds carrying the disease ate the chicken feed and spread the virus to the chickens.
Donning protective wear and masks, health workers demonstrated how to safely destroy the infected chickens after an elaborate communication procedure between government agencies.
The drill involved some eighty-nine actors from the Coast Guard Administration, the Council of Agriculture's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, and various sections of Changhua County Government, which oversees the highest concentration of chicken farms in Taiwan.
Organized by the Council of Agriculture, yesterday's event was attended by Premier Frank Hsieh and officials from the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of the Interior, Department of Health, Environmental Protection Administration, and local governments from around the island as well as chicken farm owners and citizens that together total over a thousand.
At the conclusion of the exercise, Hsieh said that he was satisfied by the drill but urged vigilance on the part of government officials.
"All parts of the government should adhere to standard procedures in dealing with the bird flu and not let personal egos get in the way," said Hsieh.
Despite the heightened alert on the part of the government, the Council of Agriculture reassured people that there is no need to panic.
"There are no reported cases of the bird flu in Taiwan so it is safe to eat poultry products," said Minister Lee Ching-lung. "The COA is strictly barring birds and poultry products from infected areas in the world from entering Taiwan."
Little can be done to prevent an outbreak of bird flu if it comes in the next year or so before vaccine production can get started, health experts caution, but they say common sense measures can help individuals protect themselves.
Number one is hand-washing, they say - a surprisingly effective way to prevent all sorts of diseases, including ordinary influenza and the H5N1 virus that everyone now fears may jump into humans and cause a catastrophic pandemic.
Number two - do not try to buy your own personal supplies of Tamiflu, one of two drugs shown to work against avian influenza.
And number three, stay home if you do get sick.
Old-fashioned hygiene works very well, experts agreed.
"You wash your hands and you cut the transmission of a bunch of diseases," said Dr Jeffrey Griffiths of Tufts University School of Medicine in Massachusetts.
This is because any type of influenza is mostly passed hand to mouth.
People sneeze and wipe their noses, then touch a microwave button.
Or particles from a cough land on a tabletop, only to be picked up on someone else's finger.
While viruses can be suspended in the air in droplets, doctors agree they are much more commonly spread on the hands.
Alcohol-based gel or foam hand sanitisers also work well to destroy viruses and bacteria.
Once someone is infected, two drugs are effective - Roche and Gilead Sciences' Tamiflu, and GlaxoSmithKline's inhaled powder Relenza.
Countries are stockpiling them now.
But Dr DA Henderson, who helped lead the effort that wiped out smallpox and who founded the Centre for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh, said it would be a mistake for individuals to try to buy the drugs now.
"I think Tamiflu is being regarded now as the panacea of all panaceas," Henderson said.
Henderson and other experts say while Tamiflu might help cope with an outbreak of H5N1, it is not going to offer outright protection.
For one thing, stocks are limited and it will take years for Roche to ramp up production - even if, as is being discussed now, it licenses generic versions to be made by other companies.
Plus, the more widely any drug is used, the more likely the virus or bacteria it targets is to develop what is known as resistance, meaning the drug becomes less effective.
Both Tamiflu and Relenza treat a flu infection, making it less serious and perhaps making the illness last fewer days.
But they must be taken within 48 hours of the first symptoms to do any good.
They can also prevent infection with garden-variety flu if taken, for example, by a family member caring for a sick relative.
No one knows if they will do the same with H5N1.
SHANGHAI, Oct. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- East China's Shanghai is increasing surveillance against a possible pandemic outbreak by sterilizing soles of all passengers entering the port by sea, land and air.
The municipal quarantine authorities have destroyed and banned imports of poultry products from bird flu-stricken countries and regions.
Since February last year, Shanghai's quarantine authority has established a leadership team for prevention and control of highly pathogenic avian influenza and improved a reporting system for the fowl epidemic, according to officials with the authorities.
Besides poultry products, the quarantine organ has intensified spot check on other imports to Shanghai. Poultry and other animal products from non-bird-flu-stricken areas are now also under its strict scrutiny.
The officials said in the past nine months, Shanghai intercepted 35,425 kilograms of poultry products from bird-flu-stricken areas, and monitored 993 batches of such products from the United States, Brazil and Argentina, with negative results for all viral tests.
In the January-September period, the local quarantine authority slew all birds and detroyed related products aboard vessels that entered Shanghai for dismantlement or maintenance. The organ supervised environmental-friendly treatment of wastes and sewage from all sorts of imbound transport vehicles and forbade the wastes and sewage from being discarded randomly. All containers from bird-flu-stricken areas have been sterilized at the port.
Related reports said China is pondering measures such as stockpiling emergency materials including anti-flu druge Tamiflu, in case the bird-flu virus mutates into a strain which is transmitted from human to human.
The latest alarm was in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, where about 2,600 birds died following a recent outbreak caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
On Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a regular press conference that China is concerned about the epidemic and has set up a nationwide monitoring network and pre-schemes for emergency.
BEIJING, Oct. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Various countries and international organizations were stepping up efforts to tackle avian flu on Thursday as fears for the lethal H5N1 strain of the flu virus have grown throughout the world.
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra confirmed the death of the latest bird flu victim in his country on Thursday. It is Thailand's 13th fatality from the deadly virus.
Shinawatra insisted there has been no scientific indication of bird flu being spread from human to human. He vowed Thailand is ready to help its neighbors contain bird flu.
Philippine Health Department said it would screen participants competing in next month's Southeast Asian Games, as a measure to detect and prevent the spread of bird flu in the country.
In Indonesia, possible clusters of bird flu among members of one family have raised concerns among health experts that this feared mutation may already be happening.
In Europe, the European Union (EU) adopted fresh measures to fight bird flu, banning live birds from markets or exhibitions without permission and urging states to keep wild flocks away from poultry feed.
The European Commission said a committee of EU veterinary experts had agreed on the measures, including recommendations for protecting birds in zoos and the extension of a ban on imports of pet birds and feathers from many regions in Russia.
The ban will remain in place for six months, a Commission spokeswoman said.
EU health ministers gathered in London on Thursday for emergency talks to tackle bird flu from the 25-nation bloc after deadly strain of the virus reported in Turkey and Romania.
The agenda of the two-day informal meeting switched from original cooperation on various health matters to how to thwart the deadly virus.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said that the member states had drawn up plans to deal with a possible pandemic and arrange stockpiles or orders for antiviral drugs, but said the risk to the general public was low.
The United States, Britain and Russia have expressed interest in an experimental Hungarian vaccine against the bird flu after initial human tests proved promising, Hungary's government said on Thursday.
Other countries interested in buying the vaccine include Indonesia, Ukraine, the Philippines and Mongolia, but concrete talks on purchases had not started yet, government spokesman Andras Batiz said.
The vaccine, applicable for the deadly H5N1 form of the virus,was tested on around 100 volunteers including Hungary's health minister in late September. Preliminary results released on Wednesday indicated the necessary immune response needed for effectiveness.
Hungary said it could eventually produce 500,000 vaccines a week, and that it would require 3.5 million doses for its population of 10 million. It could later raise production to tens of millions if needed for export.
The Hungarian vaccines would cost 5-6 US dollars each, with revenues split between the state and Omninvest, a private company which will manufacture the drugs.
Australia imposed an immediate ban on live bird imports from Canada after a group of racing pigeons were found to have been exposed to diseases including bird flu, Australian Agriculture Minister Peter MacGauran said on Friday.
Latin American governments were also taking first steps to protect their people against it.
Most local health officials say the region's poultry is at low risk from the H5N1 strain because vast oceans protect the continent.
World health ministers will gather in Ottawa next week to strengthen the international response to an anticipated influenza pandemic that some experts say may already be developing in the form of bird flu.
The meeting, scheduled from Oct. 24 to Oct. 25 in Ottawa, will bring together, for the first time, heath ministers and senior officials from about 30 developed and developing countries.
The attendants will discuss how to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, including the H5N1 avian virus, both among animals and from animals to humans.
Also on Thursday, China vowed to make joint efforts with the international community to wipe out bird flu.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a regular press conference that China has beefed up the quarantine of imports and exports to prevent the epidemic from spreading.
The H5N1 strain has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 and forced the slaughter of thousands of birds.
MEXICO CITY, Oct. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Latin America is strengthening regional cooperation to keep away the deadly bird flu, which has affected several Asian and European countries.
Health ministers from Chile and the Andean Community, which Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, will meet Friday in Lima, Peru's capital. They will discuss joint efforts, including unified border controls and joint responses to outbreaks, to avoid the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
Latin America has widely stepped up efforts in fighting a possible pandemic. Mexico and Venezuela announced a ban on imports of live birds and poultry, and intensified their farm health campaigns and border vigilance.
Colombia has reported one outbreak of a mild bird flu, but it is believed not as deadly as the H5N1 strain, which first appeared in 2003 in Southeast Asia and has killed more than 60 people.
Experts say there are no sufficient evidence showing the H5N1 virus being able to spread among humans, yet the comparatively large number of Asian deaths has alarmed governments across Latin America.
Experts agree the continent has the smallest possibility to be infected in the world due to vast oceans. But no government dares to take any chances to relax because of the virus' huge potential damage.
Argentina, Brazil and Panama said they will buy large quantities of Tamiflu, an antiviral drug made by Swiss manufacturer Roche, to combat any possible crisis.
Ecuador is banning products from Colombia, even though the bird flu strain found there is considered to pose little health risk.
Brazil, the largest exporter of chicken in the world, also intensified its farm health campaigns. Health Minister Saraiva Felipe said Thursday the country would set aside a billion reales (450 US million dollars) to keep out bird flu, and buy 193 million reales (85 million dollars) worth of Tamiflu, enough to treat 9 million people.
Chile said if the epidemic spreads among humans, it would close schools and quarantine the sick.
Health ministers from across America plan to meet Monday in Ottawa, Canada, to coordinate their anti-bird flu plans
Recent media hype surrounding avian flu – and news that the deadly virus has spread to Romania and Greece – is sure to have a knock-on effect for British retailers who are struggling to keep a brave face.
Although retailers deny poultry sales have been impacted by the spread of the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain, Asda Wal-Mart, Britain's second largest food retailer, has started an in-store marketing campaign aimed at reassuring customers. And Sainsburys has announced it will follow suit.
Sainsburys, the UK's third biggest supermarket chain with a 15.6 per cent market share, today refuted claims it has seen a serious slump in poultry sales, citing fresh chicken fillet packs as the week's best selling items.
But a company spokesperson told FoodandDrinkEurope.com: "The scaremongering over the weekend caused sales to dip slightly at the start of the week, but the media is putting out headline figures which is exacerbating the issue."
She insisted that as UK poultry has not been infected by bird flu, grocery sales are still doing well. And Tesco is keen to assert that more than 90 per cent of its poultry is sourced from UK suppliers, and the avian flu pandemic is not damaging their sales figures.
Katie Jenkins, Tesco spokesperson, explained: "We've been watching this issue and working on a contingency."
"Over 90 per cent of our chicken is sourced from British farms, so we don't source from countries that have been affected."
The British Poultry Council was today unable to confirm retail sales figures, declining to comment on the latest developments of the avian flu virus.
But in Italy, the Italian farmer's confederation reported last week that sales had fallen by 30 to 40 per cent, and Spanish retailers are on high alert following reports this week of infected Romanian poultry farms.
The French poultry wholesalers' union told local newspapers that poultry consumption has dropped by about 10 per cent since the beginning of October compared to last year. The union pinpointed bird flu as the main reason for the decline in sales.
"In some member states there seems to be a drop in consumption, but this is not the case for everybody," said Cees Vermeeren, representative of AVEC, the association of EU poultry processors.
"We hope this trend will not spread, but the market and consumers are unpredictable. It could develop into hysteria, which would not help anybody," he said.
Romanian chicken consumption has dropped by half since the deadly flu strain reached the country last week, and the spreading pandemic could wreak havoc on the EU poultry industry.
A serious outbreak of the milder H5N7 form of avian influenza in the Netherlands in 2003, spreading to Belgium and Germany, affected some 250 farms and necessitated the slaughter of more than 28 million poultry.
The country was Europe's biggest poultry producer at the time with more than 100 million chickens. About 30 million had to be destroyed at a direct cost of €150 million. The Dutch Agricultural Research Institute estimates the total cost for the Dutch farm sector, including related industries, at €500 million.
Health ministers from around the world will gather in Ottawa next week, intent on strengthening global response to an influenza pandemic that could grow out of the Southeast Asia bird flu outbreak.
Armed with lessons learned from the SARS outbreak of two years ago, the meeting announcement comes as the world looks to Canada for help in mounting an appropriate defense.
That's one of the reasons why the meeting is being hosted next week, according to David Butler Jones of the Public Health Agency of Canada.
"Everything is connected," he told CTV News. "Infections don't respect borders or religions or policies -- they just move."
The meeting will ask some serious questions, including how rich nations can help the less affluent not only look for signs of a new disease, but also test and report results quickly.
Another challenge is how to make and distribute enough anti-viral drugs, not to mention the issue of understanding a new virus fast and thoroughly enough to develop an effective vaccine in time to stem a global pandemic.
Noting that Canada is already in a state of vigilance for any such outbreaks, Dr. Arlene King told Canada AM on Wednesday that the term 'high alert' really is meant to describe a technical state of readiness.
She added that this involves gathering, analyzing and disseminating information to frontline public health authorities across Canada to make sure they're aware of the situation unfolding across the Pacific Ocean.
First appearing last fall, the avian flu -- which has a mortality rate of almost 100 per cent in birds -- has ravaged chicken farms in Vietnam, South Korea and Japan, killing millions of birds. Ducks, geese and quail have also been affected, King said.
Officials plan to issue an international agreement at the end of the meeting that will answer at least some of the questions of how to head off an international disaster.
Doomsday criers may have some ammunition.
Bird flu has taken another human life in Thailand, as a 48-year-old man became the 67th person to be killed by the virus that is steadily creeping from Asia to Europe and towards Africa.
Also, the European Union has prohibited imports of feathers and pet birds from Russia, where the EU extended their import ban.
In China the virus killed thousands of birds in breeding facility and another Thai man a man developed pneumonia after eating chicken that may have been infected with avian flu.
Bird flu has taken another human life, officials said on Thursday -- a 48-year-old Thai man who was the 67th person known to have been killed by a virus steadily creeping from Asia into Europe and towards Africa. Family member being investigated for disease.
The European Union has banned imports of feathers and pet birds from two regions of Russia now with bird flu. And now China is trying to quell another outbreak.
China faces a "grave" threat from bird flu, Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu has warned.
China said it was intensifying its battle against the virus, by introducing more rigorous
monitoring and immunisation of birds.
"We cannot let down our guard, we cannot underestimate the risks of the outbreaks," Mr Hui said.
The ministry of agriculture revealed that more than 91,000 birds had been culled following a new outbreak.
On Wednesday China said 2,600 birds had been found to have died from the disease in Inner Mongolia.
The deaths, at a farm near the region's capital of Hohhot, were due to the H5N1 strain, which is potentially lethal to humans, the Xinhua news agency said.
Joint measures
A local official told the AFP news agency that the latest outbreak had been detected at a small farm with fewer than 10,000 birds, mainly chickens, geese and peacocks.
In Thailand a villager has become the 13th person in the country to die from bird flu, but the first this year, while the man's son is being treated for flu-like symptoms, the Thai prime minister said.
Bird flu has killed at least 60 people in Asia since December 2003.
It has also now spread to Europe, with cases confirmed in Romania, Turkey and Russia, and suspected in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Greece.
On Thursday European health ministers met in the UK to discuss how to implement a joint response to bird flu on the continent.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Agency has also warned of a risk the disease will now reach the Middle East and Africa as a result of the European outbreaks.
Scientists fear the H5N1 strain could combine with human flu or mutate into a form that it easily transmissible between humans, triggering a flu pandemic.
AS winter approaches - and with it the peak outbreak season for bird flu - Vice Premier Hui Liangyu yesterday called for intensified efforts to prevent and control the disease.
Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that the H5N1 strain, which is potentially lethal to humans, was found on a farm in Tengjiaying village near the Inner Mongolia capital of Hohhot. Strict measures were adopted and no human infection has occurred, a spokesman said.
At a State Council conference on prevention and control of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Beijing, Hui ordered government departments to strictly implement the Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention. He insisted on improving the emergency mechanism to confront a possible bird flu outbreak.
"It's autumn and winter seasons, peak time for the bird flu outbreak. The situation is stark and we have heavy tasks to prevent and control it," Hui said.
He urged governments to improve epidemic outbreak emergency plans at all levels to ensure that the virus is checked once it is detected.
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