Dr Paichit Warachit, the director-general of the Medical Sciences Department, asked the public not to be scared by a report that a dog in Suphan Buri had died after contracting the H5N1 virus.

He said that up to now all bird-flu patients in Thailand were found to have had close contact with poultry that carried the virus.

"Not one patient had a history of close contact with dogs," he said.

Taweesak Songserm, the vet from Kasetsart University who found the carcass of the stray dog in Suphan Buri, said it had contracted and died of the disease after eating the carcasses of wild ducks and that it was a unique case.

He said the animal had been in a weak condition and infected with many kinds of parasite before contracting the bird-flu virus.

"It is the only case [of its kind] since the virus hit our country. So there's nothing to be worried about with your dogs," he said, referring to a possible panic among people who might be worried about their pet dogs contracting the virus.

Taweesak said he obtained the carcass of the dog on a field trip to Suphan Buri during the country's first bird-flu outbreak in 2004.

However, he only completed his research that found H5N1 in cells in various organs of the dog's body, including lungs, liver and kidneys, late last year.

Since it was going to be the first such case in the world, he said, the laboratory results needed to be confirmed by many labs.

Dogs became the fourth mammal species reported as having contracted the virus. The other three are humans, tigers and cats.

Taweesak said he was going to publish the findings of his research, which was a joint project between his university's Faculty of Veterinary Sciences and Chulalongkorn's Faculty of Medical Sciences, in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

Pennapa Hongthong

The Nation