Materia Medica Malaysiana

Chicken products from Thailand banned

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 23:
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Malaysia has banned with immediate effect the import of live chicken, eggs and chicken meat from Thailand following an outbreak of bird flu in the kingdom.
Thailand has also voluntarily stopped all chicken exports following the confirmed cases of bird flu in the country today.

Thai medical authorities also announced the first death of a person suspected to have contracted the disease, a 56-year-old man who raised fighting cocks at his home.

Agriculture Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said today that he had asked Veterinary Services Department director-general Datuk Dr Hawari Hussein to inform all importers of the ban.

He said the ministry had initially suspended the import of live chicken and eggs several days ago following reports of possible bird flu cases in Thailand.

"With confirmation now, we are banning imports totally," he said. The ban remains effective until further notice.

A similar ban is imposed on Vietnam where another 17 people are believed to be infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza which has also been reported in Japan and South Korea.

Meanwhile, wire agencies confirmed yesterday that two Thais have caught the bird flu which has already killed five Vietnamese.

"The result from the Department of Medical Science said two were positive and one was negative," Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said, referring to tests on three patients.

The two, boys aged six and seven from different provinces west of Bangkok, were in "critical but stable" condition, she said.

Children appear most at risk. No one knows why, but four of the five killed in Vietnam were children.

Bird flu affects people who have come into contact with diseased chicken. The first symptoms are fever and bronchitis.

The World Health Organisation has expressed fears that bird flu could evolve into an epidemic worse than SARS. The European Union, Hong Kong and Bangladesh have also banned Thai poultry.

Leong Hup Holdings Bhd executive director Datuk Francis Lau, one of the country's largest producers of chicken, said that Malaysia was self-sufficient in meeting the country's chicken demand and imports very little chicken meat for processing.

"Malaysia is free from the avian influenza," Lau added.

"We produce RM400 million worth of chicken meat per year, and less than five per cent, about RM20 million worth, is imported.

The Leong Hup Group operations cover poultry breeding, slaughtering, processing and retailing. Its products are marketed under the brand name of "Ayam A1". Its breeder farm is one of the largest in the country producing about 100 million chicks a year, about 26 per cent of the local market.

In Brussels, Alberto Laddo-mada, a European Commission expert in animal health told a news conference, that there was only a tiny risk of people catching bird flu by eating infected poultry meat.

"It's unlikely humans would get the infection from eating poultry meat," Laddomada, said, adding that people were catching bird flu after being in contact with poultry.

There is no evidence of the virus jumping from human to human, a doomsday scenario where bird flu in poultry and the virus in humans would mix to unlease a killer bug similiar to the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, he added.