BEIJING/HANOI, 6 February 2004 — The human death toll from the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asian poultry flocks rose to 16 yesterday as United Nations agencies said the outbreak was not under control.
China, which has the world’s highest population of poultry and is a major focus of concern, admitted it faced a tough fight to defeat the disease.
“Some parts of our animal disease prevention system are weak and vulnerable and the public has limited knowledge about the disease and ways to prevent it,” China’s Agriculture Ministry said.
“It remains an arduous task for China to prevent and control the disease,” it said in a statement. State television said the highly infectious virus may have now spread to 13 of the country’s 31 provinces. South Korea reported its 19th outbreak.
World health bodies said in a joint statement after a meeting in Rome the chance the virus could spread to other countries, “including those in distant regions, is likely to remain high” unless the right methods were used to stamp it out.
The confession from China came as Vietnam said a 16-year-old girl had become its 11th bird flu victim. “We have conducted the tests in our hospital and the results showed the girl from Soc Trang province had died from the bird flu,” Tran Tinh Hien, deputy director of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, said.
