August 21, 2006

China rejects UN claim on Thai bird flu origin

China's Ministry of Agriculture has rejected a UN assessment that bird flu outbreaks among chickens in Thailand and Laos most likely came from Chinese poultry, state media said.

"It is irresponsible to decide that the strain of virus detected in Thailand was from a certain country before having sufficient evidence," a ministry official was quoted as saying by the China Daily newspaper Saturday. The official's name was not reported.

The paper said that the ministry "denied the possibility that the virus was transmitted through poultry trade across the borders".

A Chinese strain of bird flu never seen before in Thailand or Laos was confirmed in poultry outbreaks that occurred last month in the north-eastern Thai province of Nakhon Phanom and the Laotian capital of Vientiane.

Diderik de Vleeschauwer, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) spokesman in Bangkok, said Friday (Aug 18) that cross border smuggling in poultry was the most likely source of the infection.

The China Daily report said customs data showed that China had not exported poultry to Thailand or Laos since 2004. It did not respond to the possibility of smuggling.

"Nakhon Phanom in Thailand and the Laotian capital of Vientiane, where the virus strain was detected, are both very far from the Chinese border," the official told the China Daily.

The official also said that more research needed to be done before the source could be confirmed and added that wild birds could also spread the disease.

The FAO said migratory birds could not be to blame because they are not on the move in South-east Asia this time of year.