Materia Medica Malaysiana

Fresh bird flu hits Malaysia

MALAYSIA announced today its second outbreak of deadly bird flu in three weeks, near a northern village close to the border with Thailand where the disease was first detected.

The Veterinary Department said the lethal H5N1 strain of avian influenza was believed to be the cause of the deaths of 10 chickens and 20 quail in Kampung Belian, a village five kilometres from the outbreak announced August 17.

The discovery dashed plans to declare Malaysia free of the disease, which has caused massive losses among poultry farmers because of import bans imposed by the European Union, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines.

Hawari Hussein, director-general of veterinary services, said the dead chickens and quails were recovered by inspection teams Friday and that tests showed H5N1 was the likely culprit.

"The infection is still within the 10km radius and within the 21-day quarantine period," Mr Hawari said. "Therefore, we regard this as an isolated case."






The owner of the chickens has been screened and is healthy.

The discovery means that teams will cull 1200 chickens, ducks and birds within one kilometre of the village by tomorrow night to stop it from spreading.

A fresh 21-day quarantine on the area has been imposed, and Malaysia cannot be declared free of the disease until that time elapses and no new cases are discovered.

Malaysia's first outbreak was discovered in fighting cocks in the village of Pasir Pekan. A 10km quarantine was thrown up and half a dozen people hospitalised. None tested positive.

Chickens and pet birds in the area were slaughtered and inspections were stepped up at thousands of poultry farms nationwide.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been blamed for the deaths of at least 27 people this year in Vietnam and Thailand, and Asia has been on edge for months to stop it from spreading.

About 100 million chickens have perished or were slaughtered in government-ordered culls, but the World Health Organisation says that H5N1 appears to be entrenched and flare-ups can be expected regularly.

Researchers in China caused a scare recently when they announced that H5N1 had been detected in pigs, but it was unclear whether the swine were truly infected or merely had traces on their skin or snouts.

Health experts fear that H5N1 could recombine with other forms of flu in pigs and be more easily transmitted to humans.

Malaysian officials believe that the flu entered the country from Thailand and have stepped up border controls, seizing thousands of live and frozen smuggled chickens.