August 20, 2004

Thailand Discovers New Bird Flu Outbreak In Ducks

Livestock authorities in northern Thailand have detected a fresh outbreak of bird flu in ducks and slaughtered nearly 3,000 of the birds in an effort to halt the spread of the disease, an official said Friday.

The Livestock Department of Phitsanulok province received positive test results for the disease Thursday after sending samples from sick ducks in Ban Wang Yai village to a lab a week ago, a livestock official said on condition of anonymity.

Livestock officials culled 2,880 ducks in the area Friday in an attempt to contain the disease.

Avian influenza struck poultry farms across Asia earlier this year. It also jumped to humans and killed eight people in Thailand and 19 in Vietnam. Tens of millions of chickens died or were culled.

On Wednesday, the first bird flu cases in peninsular Malaysia were discovered in fighting cocks in a remote village near the Thai border.

The disease has been detected in poultry in 22 of Thailand's 76 provinces, and nearly 300,000 birds have been slaughtered since early July, when the disease re-emerged.

Phitsanulok province is 335 kilometers north of Bangkok.