Health

Thailand Confirms 20th Flu Case

October 31, 2005 / 10:19 AM EST / CBS/AP

A woman in a northern suburb of the Thai capital of Bangkok has been diagnosed with bird flu, Deputy Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said Monday.

The 50-year-old woman, who is recovering in Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital, is the country's 20th human victim of the disease since 2003, and the third this year. Thirteen of those infected by the virus died.

The woman fell ill a day after helping clean excrement from a chicken coop in Nonthaburi province's Buathong district, said Thawat Suntarajarn, director-general of Thailand's Department of Communicable Disease Control. Laboratory results a week later confirmed that she had the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu, he told The Associated Press.

Thailand's first human cases this year were reported in October in the western province of Kanchanaburi. One was a 48-year-old man who died after handling his neighbors' sick chickens, and the other was his 7-year-old son, who also contracted the disease after handling the birds, but is recovering after being treated with anti-viral medicine.

In related developments:

On Oct. 28, Chinese and Thai officials called for measures to prevent an outbreak that they warned could infect millions of people. In China, officials went on television to try to reassure the public, saying they were capable of stopping the virus. They said human cases would be quarantined and warned that anyone who tries to hide and outbreak would be punished.

A second manufacturer is beginning mass production of a vaccine to protect against bird flu, and the Senate moved Thursday to invest far more, $8 billion, on preparations in case the influenza strain ever sparks a worldwide epidemic. Before the Senate acted, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt awarded a $62.5 million contract to Emeryville, Calif.-based Chiron Corp. to manufacture bird flu vaccine for a national stockpile. A competitor, Sanofi-Aventis of Paris, began manufacturing $100 million worth of a similar vaccine last month.

In Indonesia, authorities were testing chickens that died last week on Bali. Indonesian Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono warned that the virus could spread quickly through the densely populated archipelago since wild pigeons and other birds already were infected. "The condition (of bird flu) is critical because it has been found to have infected pigeons," he said. "We can all imagine how long and how far pigeons can fly." Bird flu has killed four people and sickened three others in Indonesia so far this year.

France's Health Ministry said it could not confirm the Thai statement, but tests in France made public Thursday showed that one of the tourists was free of bird flu.

Australia's health minister warned that his nation might have to close its borders in the event of a human epidemic, while a Hong Kong lawmaker suggested arming the public to shoot migratory birds. Health Minister Tony Abbott said the island continent of 20 million people would shut itself off from the rest of the world if a human flu pandemic breaks out. "The best way of ensuring that you don't get infected with something like this, in the absence of an effective vaccine, would be isolation," Abbott told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

In Hong Kong, lawmaker Tommy Cheung proposed allowing the public to carry guns and shoot migratory birds suspected of carrying the virus. "Perhaps what we should do is give each person a gun," said Cheung, who has a reputation for making unusual proposals, "and when we see a migrating bird, we can just shoot it down, so Hong Kong would be a much safer place."

In Thailand, health authorities also said earlier Monday they are stepping up their guard against the smuggling into the country of bird flu vaccine for poultry.

Dr. Manit Arunakun, deputy chief of the Food and Drug Administration, said the use of bird flu vaccine was not approved because it might keep the birds from dying but still allow them to carry the virus, increasing the potential for its spread.

Deputy Public Health Minister Anutin Anutin said that six smuggling arrests had been made at a border checkpoint in the northern province of Chiang Rai this year, with 1,500 bottles of bird flu vaccine from China confiscated. With one bottle containing enough vaccine for 650 birds, the total seized would have been enough for almost 1 million doses.

Manit said the number of checkpoints manned by food and drug specialists would be increased to 61 from the current 25.

The sale of such vaccine is illegal and those violating the law could face a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

Japan is taking severe precautions as well. Japanese officials planned Monday to slaughter 82,000 more chickens after signs of bird flu were detected at a farm northeast of Tokyo, and Hong Kong said it would shut farms and kill all poultry in the territory if the virus is found on more than one farm.

Pacific rim disaster experts met in Australia to discuss how to respond to a possible human flu pandemic. And Swiss drug company Roche Holding AG was reportedly in talks with Chinese officials about jointly producing its anti-viral medication Tamiflu, considered one of the few drugs likely to be effective in a global epidemic.

To counter flu in the United States, Bush on Tuesday will visit the National Institutes of Health to announce his administration's strategy on how to prepare for the next flu pandemic. Federal health officials have spent the last year updating a national plan on how to do that.

The president will ask Congress for unspecified new money, not just for a vaccine against bird flu but to fund a buildup of infrastructure ready to deal with any pandemic, said a senior administration official, who spoke Saturday on condition of anonymity.

Stockpiling drugs and vaccines is just one component.

"Understand that a lot of the things we need to do to prepare are not related to magic bullets," said Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota, an infectious disease specialist who has advised the government on preparations for the next worldwide flu outbreak but has not seen the final version of the plan.

Already the government is buying $162.5 million worth of vaccine against that bird flu strain, called H5N1, from two companies - Sanofi-Aventis and Chiron Corp., in case that happens. It also is ordering millions of doses of Tamiflu and Relenza, two antiflu drugs believed to offer some protection against the bird flu, stockpiles that the pandemic plan is expected to order be augmented.