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WHO: Bird droppings prime origin of bird flu
Saturday, January 17, 2004
CHINA - Bird flu, which has killed at least 13 people in Vietnam, is largely transmitted through bird droppings and uncooked meat, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, doubting the need to ban imports of chicken meat by some countries.
When a contaminated chicken makes an excrement the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which has triggered an Asia-wide health scare, circulates in the air and is carried by the wind, according to the WHO findings.
Piled one on top of the other in cramped cages, the birds easily pass the disease on with their dirty droppings, the WHO said, noting that chicken breeders also risked inhaling the bug and got infected easier. On the other hand, it was virtually impossible to catch bird flu by eating cooked meat that is infected, said WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib.
"The cooking kills the virus," Chaib said, citing some WHO experts. Similarly, boiling the bird also destroyed the bug, Chaib said. Fears about spreading the disease prompted Japan on Friday to ban Taiwan poultry imports after bird flu was discovered on the Chinese island. It also began burying the carcasses of 34,600 of its own birds that may have been infected.
The WHO warned that it was equally dangerous for humans to be close to infected birds whether they are alive or dead. Only a few animals manage to survive once they catch bird flu and those who survive continue to lay contaminated droppings for a minimum of 10 days.
The WHO earlier confirmed that one more person has died from bird flu in Vietnam , but stressed that the disease was only being transmitted through birds and not yet through humans. Vietnamese authorities have recorded 13 deaths due to the disease out of 18 suspected cases but the WHO has yet to verify the others.
The person died from the disease was a five-year-old child in the Vietnamese province of Nam Dinh . Vietnam has ordered the slaughter of all chickens in the 12 regions grappling with a bird flu epidemic and banned the sale of poultry in Ho Chi Minh City , the country's largest metropolis.
South Korea , Japan and Taiwan were also battling their own outbreaks of bird flu, which is threatening to spoil next week's Lunar New Year celebrations across the region and comes amid a re-emergence of a few SARS cases in southern China.
Source: WHO: Bird droppings prime origin of bird flu @ http://www.thepoultrysite.com |
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