• 
• 

Published on October 12, 2007

The virus infection among birds has meanwhile spread to 60 countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.

DCD director-general Dr Thawat Suntrajarn said the incidence of bird flu recorded globally between 2003 and this past Monday had left 303 people infected, of whom 202 had died. This indicates a rate of mortality and morbidity that has risen to 60 per cent.

The highest rate of mortality and morbidity is in Indonesia, where 108 people have caught the virus and 87 have died. Vietnam is second with 100 cases, of whom 46 have died.

Thawat said that in Thailand, 25 people had suffered from avian influenza - 17 of them having died.

The DCD has not, however, found any new cases of human infection this year.

He was speaking at a seminar called the "Thailand Human Influenza Research Meeting" organised by the International Emerging Infec-tion Programme, Influenza Thailand and the Public Health Ministry.

Because of the excessive amount of rain this year, Dr Prasert Thongchareon, president of the Influenza Foun-dation (Thailand), expressed concern about a general influenza epidemic following an increase in morbidity and mortality. He said flu cases last year reached 16,146, but by the middle of this year there had been 11,471 cases recorded with four deaths.

Prasert said the deaths indicated that the severity of the disease would likely be of great concern, as nobody had died from flu last year. He urged the ministry to closely monitor the prevalence of influenza.

He confirmed that the most common influenza viruses - H3N2, H1N1 and H5N1 -found in Thailand had not mutated as yet.

Thawat said last week he had assigned public-health provincial units across the country to closely monitor any influenza outbreak likely to be caused by the stormy conditions that had waterlogged many areas and raised humidity levels.

Pongphon Sarnsamak

The Nation