06 February 2004	Friday	14 Zilhaj 1424

ROME/HANOI, Feb 5: Three U.N. agencies admonished Asian countries infected with bird flu on Thursday for being too slow in sounding the alarm and warned that the epidemic, which has now killed 16 people, was still not under control.

The virus has ravaged poultry flocks in 10 countries and spread in China, home to the world's biggest poultry population. Authorities there said they faced a tough fight to defeat the disease and state television reported that the virus may now have spread to 13 of the country's 31 provinces.

South Korea reported its 19th outbreak, and Vietnam's Hospital for Tropical Diseases said tests showed that a 16-year-old girl from southern Soc Trang province had become the country's 11th bird flu victim.

Thailand, which has reported five deaths, said it had two more suspected cases, a two-year-old boy and a 67-year-old man. It now has 19 suspected cases of infection by a virus believed to be spread by migrating birds.

Health experts say the human victims have caught the flu from sick chickens and the virus is not being passed between people, but there are fears the bird flu virus could combine with a human flu virus and mutate into a new infectious disease.

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 virus was not under control, said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the world animal health body, OIE.

"Without the implementation of appropriate methods of disease control the risk of epidemic spread to further countries, including those in distant regions, is likely to remain high," it said.

The statement criticised "a lack of timely reporting" of the spread of infection.

"All countries could have notified us more quickly. This is a collective message to all countries to improve surveillance," said Bernard Vallat, director general of the Paris-based OIE.

The three agencies called for the creation of co-ordination centres in each affected country, public education programmes and urgent international donor support.

Some 50 million birds had been culled in Asia so far and poultry restocking alone will cost some $150 million, said Louise Fresco, the FAO's assistant director-general.

China, which was castigated last year for covering up the SARS outbreak for several months, admitted that parts of its animal disease prevention system were "weak and vulnerable" and the public had only limited knowledge about the disease and limited ways to prevent it.

"It remains an arduous task for China to prevent and control the disease," China's Agriculture Ministry said in a statement, adding that more than 1.2 million chickens had been culled.

The U.N. agencies said that while culling animals remained the recommended action when the disease was detected, vaccination programmes could limit the killing and damage to the livelihoods of rural households and national economies.

Indonesia, which initially said it could not afford to pay compensation for slaughtered birds and preferred to vaccinate but reversed position under international pressure, said it would cull 10 million poultry.

Thailand, which says it has culled 25.9 million birds so far, sounded a note of optimism on Thursday, saying it believed the mass slaughters were working.

"Our progress in fighting the disease is satisfactory," chief Thai government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair told reporters. "The situation is improving steadily."

He said the number of so-called "red zones" - the five-km areas around confirmed outbreaks, within which all poultry must be slaughtered - had dropped to 10 in five of its 76 provinces.

Last week, the government reported more than 140 red zones in 29 provinces. So confident is it that the outbreak is under control, the Thai government is organising "chicken-eating fairs" across the country on Saturday in a bid to convince people that the experts are right to say well-cooked chicken and eggs pose no danger. -Reuters