ASIA: New outbreaks of bird flu in Thailand and Laos are fanning fears the disease is flaring up again in Asia, although concerns that the virus was mutating in Indonesia have subsided.
In Vietnam, which has not reported any outbreak of the H5N1 virus in poultry in the last seven months, a 35-year-old man in the southern province of Kien Giang, on the border with Cambodia, is suspected of having contracted bird flu.
In central Thailand, outbreaks have been reported in the north and northeast.
Concerns about a cluster of human cases in Indonesia eased after preliminary tests cleared six people in the province of North Sumatra of bird flu. They lived in the same district where as many as seven members of an extended family died in May, but tests showed they had common human flu.
In Vietnam, where 42 people have died since late 2003, a doctor treating the latest suspect case said the man had a high fever after eating duck meat. The last confirmed human case in Vietnam was last November.
Vietnamese officials said a failure to control its waterfowl made the country vulnerable to new outbreaks.
Adding to the risk, wild birds believed to carry H5N1 could soon migrate from the north.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has urged governments to be vigilant against a virus still circulating in poultry three years after it swept across much of Asia. Worried about the region's defences, a senior FAO official was sent to Laos this week to assess its surveillance efforts after bird flu was found last month on a farm south of the capital Vientiane, its first outbreak since 2004.
He will do the same next week in Thailand where the government has been criticised for its slow response to the latest outbreaks and the death of a teenager last month. The government has vowed to close the gaps in its surveillance programme.
Thailand is also launching a generic version of the anti-flu drug Tamiflu, which is licensed by Swiss drug maker Roche, in November. The state drug firm said its version would cost 70 baht (€1.45) a capsule, 40 per cent cheaper than Roche's Tamiflu.