Thailand brings in troops to fight bird flu

Thailand brought in troops and prisoners yesterday to kill millions of chickens and stop the spread of highly contagious bird flu, which has jumped to humans in Vietnam and Thailand and now spread to Indonesia.

With most people fearing contamination, 400 soldiers were drafted to kill the hens in Suphan Buri province northwest of Bangkok, Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchop told reporters. A hundred prisoners were also brought in.

"We have had labour problems. It is difficult to find labourers as after the bird flu outbreak was confirmed, many of them are avoiding working on farms," Mr Newin said.

All chickens in the province, a major area of production in a Thai industry that raises a billion chickens a year and earns $1.5 billion in exports, will be killed.

Thailand kills the hens by tying them up in sacks and burying them alive.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra tried to ease farmers' fears yesterday, promising them compensation, help with starting up again after the epidemic and a suspension of their debts.

China was the latest of many countries to ban Thai chicken imports. Last year, Beijing was widely accused of covering up an outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

The World Health Organisation fears that if bird flu combines with human flu, a new strain could sweep through a human population with no immunity to it in an epidemic worse than Sars.

The WHO calls the near-simultaneous outbreaks in Asia "historically unprecedented".

Indonesia confirmed an outbreak of the disease that has emerged in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Jakarta said yesterday about 4.7 million chickens had died in the country since November, 60 per cent from Newcastle disease, harmless to humans, and 40 per cent from a combination of that and bird flu.

"It's been confirmed avian influenza exists, but no human cases so far," animal health director Tri Satya Putri Naipospos told reporters.

Six people have died in Vietnam and two human cases have been confirmed in Thailand. "There's no denying the disease is spreading," Anton Rychener, Vietnam representative for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, told Reuters.

Vietnam's latest known human case was an eight-year-old girl in the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City.

Children appear most at risk - five of Vietnam's six dead and both Thailand's cases were children - but why is unclear. All seem to have caught it from sick chickens.

Mr Thaksin's government denies covering up bird flu by describing the outbreak in November as poultry cholera, which cannot jump to humans. The government said it knew for sure it was bird flu only when tests confirmed it on Friday.

"The government never realised it was avian influenza before yesterday, but it was suspecting that it might be," chief government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said.

Mr Thaksin told reporters the government took steps at the time to combat bird flu, but announcing them could have caused panic.

Thailand has invited Asian health and agriculture officials and international agencies to discuss bird flu on Wednesday.

Bangkok could come in for criticism at the session, Western officials say, to match the fury of some newspapers and opposition politicians.