Materia Medica Malaysiana

Malaysia Teenager in Hospital for Bird Flu Checks

KAMPUNG PASIR PEKAN, Malaysia (Reuters) - A teenager from the village at the center of a bird flu outbreak has been hospitalized with cold symptoms, Malaysia's health minister said on Friday, as poultry farmers counted their losses.

The World Health Organization warned the virus, which has killed 27 people in Asia this year, could mutate into a highly contagious form that starts the next human flu pandemic.

The 16-year-old girl was taken to hospital after health officials checked 297 families living near where the virus was found in two chickens in the village of Pasir Pekan, Health Minister Chua Soi Lek told reporters.

But he played down the risk that she would be the outbreak's first human victim.

"To this day, we don't think it's avian flu because she's having no fever, only a cough, sore throat and runny nose," he said. "There's no symptom of lung infection."

Poultry farmers, banned from selling eggs and poultry in their key export market of Singapore, said they would lose up to 3 million ringgit ($790,000) a day, and faced a headache about what to do with chickens that would be overweight and drop in value within a day or two.

"Not only exports have stopped, local consumption has also dropped," said Abdul Rahman Md. Saleh, executive consultant for the Livestock Farmers' Associations of Malaysia.

Malaysia's 25 million people are among the world's largest consumers of chicken, eating around 68 lb each a year.

Human cases of bird flu have occurred in people living or working in close contact with birds, but Japan and Taiwan have also banned Malaysian poultry products.