26 January 2004	Monday	03 Zilhaj 1424

BANGKOK, Jan 25: Thailand on Sunday dispatched hundreds of troops to help battle the outbreak of bird flu in the kingdom which spread to a second province on Sunday despite the mass cullings of chickens.

After weeks of denying that a disease ravaging chickens in Thailand was the H5N1 virus which has killed six people in Vietnam, the government confirmed two human cases here on Friday and said the virus had been detected in poultry.

The army sent 650 troops into Suphan Buri province to help cull all of its chickens as it also said test results showed neighbouring Kanchanaburi province, which borders isolated Myanmar, was also harbouring ill chickens.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is fighting allegations that his government covered up the outbreak in order to protect Thailand's 1.2 billion-dollar export industry, travelled to the embattled province.

He met farmers whose livelihoods have been devastated and conceded his government had suspected an outbreak had occurred but denied responsibility for the extent of the crisis that risks engulfing Asia.

"We suspected it for about a couple of weeks," he told reporters, insisting that even though the results had not been confirmed, "we have acted as if it was the bird flu."

When asked why the public was not informed, he said: "When it is not the bird flu, how can you tell them it is bird flu?" The premier, who is hosting emergency international talks on the crisis on Wednesday, refused to accept any culpability.

"Let's blame it on bad luck. The government is finding a solution to help you. We must cooperate," he told farmers, after earlier saying that the government would consider a comprehensive aid package for farmers this week.

Farmers are currently receiving 40 baht (one dollar) per chicken culled but farmers have complained the real cost to them is double this. Deputy agriculture minister Newin Chidchob said the mass culling of birds would intensify on Monday in Kanchanaburi, as nationwide testing of birds would begin.

"We will start getting samples from birds, particularly pigeons, to see how and where the bird flu is spreading. The sample testing will be across the country and we expect results within a week," he told reporters.

Meanwhile China on Sunday announced a ban on imports of poultry from Thailand, joining the kingdom's main poultry buyers Japan and the European Union, along with a range of other countries.

The 1.2-billion dollar export industry faces devastating losses. Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai told reporters late on Saturday that outbreak-affected countries Cambodia, Japan and Vietnam have confirmed attendance at this week's emergency talks.

South Korea and Taiwan, who have also reported outbreaks, have been invited while China, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United States, European Union, the World Health Organisation and Food and Agriculture Organisation have confirmed attendance.

"The meeting is to draft consistent prevention measures for affected countries," Surakiart said. "These countries can't work alone because this is a cross-border issue. We have to adopt the same standards to make other countries confident."

millions hit in Indonesia: Indonesia's agriculture ministry said on Sunday an outbreak of bird flu has infected millions of chickens but no cases had been reported so far in humans.

"The government will not cover it up that Indonesia has now been infected by the avian influenza which has attacked millions of poultry in Indonesia," said the director for animal husbandry, Sofyan Sudarjat.

He urged people not to panic and said no humans have so far been reported infected by the potentially deadly disease, which has now spread to seven Asian countries and has killed six people in Vietnam.

Officials previously blamed a widespread outbreak of viral disease among poultry on Java and Bali islands on Newcastle disease. The outbreak began in November.

Earlier Sunday agriculture ministry spokesman Hari Priyono had said there was still no sign of bird flu in the country. Priyono late on Sunday said it was not clear if the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 type, which has caused most of the deaths in Vietnam.

The spokesman said 4.7 million fowls have been killed since November by a combination of the Newcastle disease and what he called Type A avian influenza. About 60 per cent of the birds died from Newcastle disease. He said no immediate mass cull would be ordered.

"We will have to see first before ordering a massive culling of fowls in infected areas. We will have to be certain that the country has been positively infected by the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza before we start such actions," Priyono said.

Health experts have warned that the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu virus could merge with the separate human influenza virus to create a deadlier form of the illness for humans.

CHINESE BAN: China has banned imports of poultry from Thailand and Cambodia, raising its level of alert against the rapidly multiplying threat of bird flu, state media reported on Sunday.

The decision by the ministry of agriculture and quarantine authorities, reported by the official Xinhua news agency, comes two days after both Southeast Asian nations confirmed they had been struck by the deadly H5N1 virus.

The measure, which Xinhua said was taken "to prevent possible inflow of bird flu and safeguard domestic stockbreeding," follows a ban on poultry imports from Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.

The concrete impact of the ban is likely to be limited, given China's relatively small import of Thai poultry. In 2002, China accounted for 1.6 per cent of Thailand's chicken exports, even smaller than Hong Kong's 1.9 per cent, according to the US Department of Agriculture, citing Thai customs statistics.-AFP