# 1021
While India struggles with their own outbreak, Myanmar (also known as Burma) is reporting a fresh outbreak among poultry on two farms south of the Capital Yangon.
Myanmar reports new bird flu outbreak
(AFP)
29 July 2007
YANGON - Myanmar has detected a fresh outbreak of bird flu on two poultry farms south of the capital Yangon, state media said on Sunday.
Authorities confirmed on Tuesday that dead chickens at the farms in Mon state, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) south of Yangon, had been infected with the H5N1 virus, the official Mirror newspaper said.
Animal health officials killed about 300 chickens on the two farms, the paper said, quoting Myanmar’s livestock breeding and veterinary department.
It was the first fresh bird flu outbreak since June, but Myanmar so far has not reported any human cases of avian influenza. Some 660,000 birds were slaughtered last year to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
As of last week, the World Health Organisation had recorded 319 cases of bird flu in humans worldwide, 192 of which were fatal.
Experts fear the death toll could rise sharply if the virus were to mutate and become easily transmissible between humans.
