January 27, 2004

 

 

Bird Flu Claims 1.5 Million Chickens In Pakistan

 

Pakistani authorities have announced that the bird flu outbreak in the country has claimed the lives of 1.5 million chickens in Karachi. Vaccines have been distributed to farmers, with culling at affected farms ordered.

 

The World Health Organization didn't confirm the outbreak Monday, which a top Pakistani agriculture official said involved strains of bird flu that cannot spread to humans - something that has happened in other parts of Asia.

 

However, according to the WHO Web site, the reported Pakistani strains have also been known to cause illness in humans - although they are different from the H5N1 bird flu strain that has killed at least seven people in Thailand and Vietnam.

 

Pakistan is the first country in South Asia to detect the bird flu in the latest outbreak. Seven countries have been affected in Southeast and East Asia, forcing governments to cull poultry in a desperate bid to contain the disease.

 

"The total chicken population in Karachi is 4.3 million and out of them about 1.5 million have died in the past few weeks," said Rafaqat Hussain Rajam, federal commissioner for livestock husbandry.

 

He said laboratory tests in Islamabad and London had confirmed the chicken deaths were caused by the H7 and H9 strains of avian influenza. He said the source of infection was local, and that no humans had been infected.

 

"We have confirmed this. The strand that jumps to humans is not in them," he said. "This sticks to birds only."

 

Faizullah Kakar, an official at the WHO office in Pakistan, said it had no confirmation of an outbreak of bird flu here, but had written a letter Sunday to the government urging precautions against it. He said WHO was seeking more information from the government.

 

There are various subtypes of avian influenza, all of which can be found in birds, but only a few have been known to circulate widely in humans. The most deadly is the H5N1 strain, but the WHO Web site says that H7 and H9 viruses have also recently caused illness in humans. The H7N7 strain killed a veterinarian in the Netherlands in February 2003.

 

Manzoor Panwar, minister for livestock in Sindh province where Karachi is located, said according to initial estimates, bird flu has been detected among 10% to 25% of chickens in the province.

 

"We have started providing vaccines to all poultry in Sindh to prevent further outbreaks and have told affected farms to destroy all their infected chickens," Panwar told The Associated Press.

 

Raja said the disease was confirmed "two, three days" ago.

 

"The situation is almost under control," he said, adding that poultry farm owners have been told to bury the infected birds.

 

He said at least 20 to 30 "big" farms in Karachi have been hit by the disease, but it has not spread to other parts of the country.

 

Agriculture officials from all four of Pakistan's provinces were meeting Monday in the capital Islamabad to discuss ways to keep bird flu from spreading, officials said.

 

The WHO called Monday on the global scientific community to find a cure for bird flu, amid concern from health officials it may mutate into a form that can be transmitted from person to person, triggering the next human flu pandemic.