Major outbreak of bird flu seen likely

The discovery of a deadly bird flu strain in Malaysia after cases elsewhere in Southeast Asia signalled a major winter outbreak was likely, international health experts said yesterday.

Since a strain deadly to humans emerged in Asia several months ago, scientists have voiced fears the flu could mutate, become able to jump to humans, and spread.

Adding to concern was an announcement by a Chinese scientist on Friday that pigs in China had been found infected with bird flu, but the World Health Organisation said that did not come as a complete surprise.

A strain of bird flu blamed for 27 deaths in Asia this year has been found in Malaysia this week and hundreds of birds have been gassed this week and their carcasses burned to contain the outbreak.

The latest deaths from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza were of three people in Vietnam earlier this month.

"This is a great concern. It says to me that the virus is endemic in the region," virologist Dr Robert Webster of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, told a Beijing symposium.

China had found pigs infected for the first time with bird flu in 2002 and 2003, Chen Hualan, a member of the China Academy of Agriculture, told an conference on avian flu and SARS. "This is a somewhat dangerous signal for public health," she said.

WHO representative Henk Bekedam told Reuters: "We know that pigs can carry human virus as well as bird flu virus.

"We need a lot more information before we can make comments on that... We also know that the virus so far has been very ineffective in being easily transmitted to humans, let alone between humans."

The fear is that human and bird flu virus could mix in pigs and form a strain more easily transmittable to humans.

The outbreak in Malaysia was the country's first and no human cases have been confirmed.

But three people suffering from cold symptoms have been admitted to hospital and put in quarantine. Two of them, a teenage girl and her mother, are from the village at the centre of the outbreak while the third is a veterinary worker who reached the area two days ago.

All three are being tested for bird flu. Malaysia's poultry industry faces huge losses as export markets close and livestock prices fall. And restaurants specialising in chicken dishes in the capital Kuala Lumpur had noticeably fewer customers on Friday.

"Usually we are jam-packed on Friday and Saturday because the food is good," said Raul, a waiter at Mediterranean grilled chicken outlet Nando's.

"But today, it is down. Maybe 10 to 20 per cent less customers."

A total of 15 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian flu have been reported since 1950, five of them big, said Dr Klaus Stohr of the Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response under the WHO Global Influenza Programme.

"The one this year is even bigger. What we are seeing is completely unprecedented," Stohr told Reuters on the sidelines of the Beijing symposium.

"The probability of the continuation of the outbreak is relatively high. The virus appears endemic, with a foothold in domesticated bird populations."

In rallying to stem the spread of the disease, many Asian countries could look to China as a model, health experts said.

China has had success in controlling outbreaks of bird flu, mostly in its southern provinces, despite being the world's most populous country in terms of both humans and poultry.

China has vaccinated more than 11 million birds and culled eight million to rein in outbreaks that have infected 150,000 birds and killed 120,000 this year, Chen Hualan said.

China also suspended exports of chilled ducks and geese to Hong Kong on August 2.

"The key element in control and prevention is controlling birds' movements," said Stohr.