Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Myanmar Reports New Outbreak In Poultry

 

# 1030

 

Myanmar (or Burma, if you are old-school) is reporting the second outbreak in the past couple of weeks, once again in poultry.  

 

Surveillance and reporting in this country are less than optimum, and so the full extent of what is going on there is probably unknown.   India recently pointed the finger at Myanmar as being the source of their recent bird flu outbreak. 

 

 

 

Myanmar reports fresh bird flu outbreak
Posted: 01 August 2007 1734 hrs

 

YANGON - Myanmar has detected its second outbreak of bird flu in less than a month, this time on a poultry farm in the central region of Bago, health officials said Wednesday.

 

Lab tests on Tuesday confirmed the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in dead chickens at a poultry farm in Bago, about 145 kilometres (90 miles) northwest of Myanmar's main city Yangon, said Kyaw San, an official at the government's livestock department.

 

About seven dead chickens were found Saturday at a farm in Letpandan township, he said.

 

Health officials are slaughtering about 3,800 chickens at the farm to prevent the virus from spreading, he added.

 

"No human case has been reported yet. We hope to avoid any human cases," said Kyaw Nyunt Sein, a senior health ministry official.

 

The finding came just days after Myanmar reported outbreaks on two poultry farms in Mon state, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) south of Yangon.

 

About 300 chickens were slaughtered on those two farms. The cases were the first known outbreaks of bird flu since June.

 

Some 660,000 birds were slaughtered last year to contain the spread of the deadly virus.

 

Indian officials have also been investigating whether an outbreak of bird flu in its remote northeastern states late last month could have originated in Myanmar.