Bird flu does the rounds again and another Thai man dies - Bangkok area on high alert

Officials in Thailand have confirmed that a 27-year-old man who died on Thursday was another bird flu victim.

His death takes Thailand's death toll to 16, two of which have been this year, and the world total to 135 since 2003.

The man's death has prompted officials to place 8 more provinces, including the Bangkok area, on a bird flu high alert.

The man from Ban Tung Pattana in Sawang Arom district in the province of Uthai Thani which is 220 km north of Bangkok, died following the death of his backyard poultry from the H5N1 virus.

He was hospitalised a week ago and treated with oseltamivir, an anti-viral medicine to combat the virus, but his condition continued to deteriorate.

The province is the third province to experience an outbreak since the virus re-emerged in July after an eight-month lull.

Dr. Thawat Suntrajarn, chief of the Department of Disease Control, says the man buried the poultry without carrying out safeguards and as a result caught the fatal virus himself.

The World Health Organization is now urging previously hard-hit countries to also be vigilant as it is clear that even in a country as well prepared as Thailand, the virus can reappear.

In an attempt to prevent the virus spreading from the dead man's farm, 116 chickens and fighting cocks have been culled.

The man's wife is not sick, but is being monitored because she apparently cooked and ate some of the dead birds, said Dr. Thawat.

Thailand was already on a high alert after the death of a teenager there in late July and has made efforts to improve its bird flu defences.

The area around the sprawling Thai capital was among eight provinces declared bird flu risk zones on Saturday, increasing the total to 29 of Thailand's 76 provinces.

Agriculture Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan has said the ministry will step up proactive measures and campaigns to fight the virus, including a door-to-door campaign to educate villagers on how to handle sick or dead poultry.

A new call centre has been established to handle reports of suspicious poultry deaths and answer questions about the disease.

Officials admit that the fact that people were still handling dead chickens with their bare hands showed the government's safety messages were not getting through despite the use of billboards, radio spots and television to tell people to protect themselves from the disease.

Thawat says some people are still complacent or ignore the warnings.

The Thai government has threatened fines of up to 4,000 baht (about $100) or two months in jail for failing to report sick or dead birds.

Officials however say that compensation for affected poultry farmers is a key to effective bird flu eradication and prevention because many villagers refused to cull their chickens for fear they would not receive compensation.

The current crackdown has come about after it was disclosed that villagers in the province of Pichit, where the teenager died last month, were found to be hiding sick birds for fear their remaining flocks would be culled.

The outbreaks in Thailand and neighbouring Laos, where bird flu was found on a farm near the capital Vientiane last month, have renewed fears that the disease is breaking out again in Asia.

Vietnamese authorities however are taking no chances and even though there have been no confirmed cases among poultry or humans this year, 53 wild storks at a theme park in Ho Chi Minh City were slaughtered following random tests which found H5, part of the H5N1 virus, present in two birds.

In Indonesia meanwhile tests have confirmed six suspected human cases in Northern Sumatra province, where the virus killed seven members of one family, were not bird flu.

To date Indonesia and Vietnam have each had 42 deaths, the highest number of confirmed human deaths of any countries in the world.