2004-7-12
This is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
The chicken industry in East Asia has grown quickly in recent
years. But now the industry must deal with findings that the avian
influenza virus is more widespread than was thought.
In the last two weeks, China, Thailand and Vietnam all reported
new cases of bird flu. China and Thailand are two of the largest
poultry producers in the world.
Scientists were not immediately sure if this was a new virus or a
continuation of the major outbreaks earlier this year. But a top
official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
said the new cases are not a surprise.
Joseph Domenech says governments need to recognize that the virus
will continue to spread and different ones could also appear. He
says doing away with the avian flu virus "should be considered, at
best, as a long-term task."
By the end of last week workers had killed tens of thousands of
chickens and ducks to stop the spread of the virus. But a World
Health Organization official, Doctor Shigeru Omi, said there was
still a great risk to public health.
Earlier this year, the avian flu virus killed at least
twenty-three people in Southeast Asia. The W.H.O. says thirty-four
people in all became infected. At that time, workers killed about
one-hundred million chickens and other birds in an effort to stop
the infection. Scientists fear that the virus could become able to
spread from person to person.
Medical experts in China recently found that the h-five-n-one
virus is becoming more dangerous to mammals. They studied viruses
collected over four years. They observed the effects on chickens,
mice and ducks.
The researchers found that the more recent forms of the virus
were more deadly to mice than earlier versions. They say immediate
action is needed to prevent the spread of avian flu viruses from
ducks into chickens or mammals. The virus infects ducks but does not
make them sick. The study appears this week in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.
And a study last week in the magazine Nature says wild birds may
have added to the increasing spread of the virus in Asia. The
researchers say their results suggest that h-five-n-one has become
firmly rooted in the area. They say these developments may be a
threat to people and animals worldwide.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by Caty
Weaver and Mario Ritter. This is Bob Doughty.