Thailand "free of avian flu, say officials"

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troopie
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Thailand "free of avian flu, say officials"

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Country free of avian flu, say officials

First time since second outbreak in July 2004

PIYAPORN WONGRUANG

Thailand is now free of avian influenza for the first time since the second outbreak of the virus in July of last year, officials said yesterday.

Yesterday marked the end of the 21-day bird flu surveillance period at a farm in Lop Buri province, the last place in the country to have reported the disease.

Charal Trinvuthipong, assistant to the agriculture and cooperatives minister, said the Livestock Development Department had kept the Lop Buri farm under surveillance for 21 days after some poultry there became infected with bird flu.

This is the first time since the second outbreak last July that the country has been declared free of the disease in farms and other areas of concern.

But Dr Charal said the ministry would remain vigilant for any re-emergence of the H5N1 virus and officials would conduct bi-weekly checks for bird flu.

The ministry has also recruited more than 600 temporary employees to monitor the disease, he said. They would be deployed in eight northern and central provinces which were regarded as red zones where the disease kept on reappearing. These were Ang Thong, Lop Buri, Kampheng Phet, Nakhon Sawan, Phichit, Phitsanulok, Sukhothai, Suphan Buri and Uttaradit provinces.

He added that no new bird flu patients have been reported since last October.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said the ministry is proposing improvements to fowl raising methods for small farmers. She said they would be encouraged to form groups and raise their poultry together in closed-system farms in their respective areas to reduce the chance of fowl infection.

Since the flu first struck here last January, more than 60 million birds have been culled and 12 people have died. There have been no human fatalities since the death of a 14-year-old girl in Sukhothai province who died on Oct 19.

Bird flu has cost the country's economy about 4.3 billion baht in addition to the 2.2 billion baht compensation the government paid to farmers for the mass chicken cull in January 2003.
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