KAMPUNG PASIR PEKAN, Malaysia, 20 August 2004 —A strain of bird flu blamed for 27 deaths in Asia this year has been found in Malaysia, the government said yesterday, as hundreds of birds were gassed and their carcasses burned to contain the outbreak.
Two chickens that died in a northern village near the Thai border were found to be infected with the deadly strain in Malaysia’s first bird flu outbreak, said Abi Musa Asa’ari Mohamed Nor, secretary-general of the Agriculture Ministry. “The results (from tests of the birds) show they were H5N1, which is pathogenic, which is the dangerous one,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
In Geneva, the World Health Organization called the sudden outbreak of the virus strain in Malaysia “disconcerting” and said there was still the risk it could jump to humans, with pandemic potential.
“As long as it circulates in animals, there’s always the possibility, the risk, that it will jump to humans (and) when it jumps to humans there is always the risk of a pandemic development,” said Dick Thompson, spokesman for the UN body.
Malaysia was now on nationwide alert for bird flu cases but the government had decided against banning poultry exports, Abi said, reversing an earlier statement by a veterinary official. It would be up to other countries to decide whether to buy Malaysian poultry and eggs. The recent deaths of three people in Vietnam have been blamed on the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. The strain also killed 16 people there and eight in Thailand early this year.
