# 571
This article comes from People's Daily Online, a Chinese News source. The report is fairly routine until you get to the last line.
Laos intensifies anti-bird flu activities
Laos, in a move to prevent bird flu spread, has focused on monitoring fowl transport, trade, processing and slaughtering, and improving public awareness on the disease, the country's news agency KPL reported Tuesday.
Laos has banned the transport of fowls and related products in and out its capital Vientiane, and asked restaurants and hotels temporarily not to make foods out of poultry and eggs.
It has also culled all poultry in affected areas, and launched bird flu information campaigns in crowded areas such as markets, bus stations and border gates. Local veterinary agencies have slaughtered more than 1,000 ducks and destroyed over 100,000 duck eggs at five farms in Vientiane.
As of March 11, bird flu had hit 211 villages in six out of nine districts in the capital.
Source: Xinhua
Not having seen any numbers approaching 211 villages in Laos being infected with H5N1, I did a little digging. I found this, from the Vientiane times, posted today.
Vientiane uses law in battle against bird flu outbreak
Vientiane authorities announced yesterday that they would be taking legal measures against poultry owners who do not cooperate with officials in culling their chickens.
The announcement was made after officials faced various difficulties when trying to carry out their jobs last week. Some locals had released their chickens before the officials arrived, while others hid their poultry.
If this behaviour continues, officials believe they will not be able to achieve their goals, and will be forced to take serious action against such people.
Refusing to cooperate with the officials is tantamount to ignoring the potential harm to other people in surrounding areas, and is considered a crime, said the Director of the Vientiane Agriculture and Forestry Department, Mr Lasanivong Amarathithada.
“We will take a soft approach first, and if these people still refuse to hand over their chickens, we will have to take legal action,” he said.
The committee will be keeping records of villagers, and those who cooperate will be marked in green, while those who do not will be marked in red, he said, and would be regarded as criminals, he said.
“It is a matter of life and death. If we don't succeed in killing all poultry, the virus will continue to spread,” he said.
This is the second round of poultry culls in Vientiane , the first being two weeks ago. The Vientiane authorities also announced on Friday that they would expand the culling operations from 23 to 211 villages, even through some of these areas remain unaffected by the virus.
A confirmation, of sorts, that 211 villages will face culling. Last week authorities admitted that they would be forced to cull poultry in villages where birds had died, even if confirmatory tests hadn't been done.
On March 9th, I reported here on the the spread of bird flu in Laos. From an article I posted, comes this:
Officials planned to cull up to 200,000 fowl to stamp out confirmed and suspected outbreaks in the southern provinces of Savannakhet and Champasak and stop the H5N1 virus in and around the capital, Yong Chanhthalansy said.
"Although tests have not confirmed that they have died of H5N1, our policy now is just kill them all," Yong said by telephone from Vientiane, referring to the suspected cases in Savannakhet.
I suppose, for accuracies' sake, we should say that the presumption is that the H5N1 virus has spread to as many as 211 villages.
A fairly dramatic development for a country that a little over a month ago supposedly didn't have a problem.
