Published on October 28, 2005 - Local health authorities yesterday questioned the likelihood of three French tourists contracting bird flu while visiting a bird park in Thailand, as has been reported from Paris. “The possibility is quite low, unless the tourists were having very close contact with the diseased birds,” said Somchai Peeratakorn, resident avian-influenza expert for the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Bangkok. “But who knows what a tourist can do.” French officials announced on Wednesday that three French citizens from Reunion island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, had possibly been infected with bird flu during a trip to Thailand.

The three people visited a bird park in Thailand, said French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand after a crisis cabinet meeting on avian influenza. Photos show they were in close contact with birds there, said Helene Monard, a French Health Ministry spokeswoman.

Preliminary tests on the three earlier this week indicated a positive result for the dreaded H5N1 that has killed 13 people in Thailand over the past two years. Samples were then sent for further tests at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Late last night one of tourists - a 43-year-old Frenchman being kept in quarantine in a hospital on the Indian Ocean island - got the all clear, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry.

The man, who had fever and complained of headaches on Saturday, was “not a carrier of the H5N1 virus, but rather a flu virus of another sort”, the French health ministry said in a statement yesterday.

The ministry said it was still waiting for the results of tests on the two other patients, who were receiving antiviral treatment at home.

Some 19 others who took the same trip to Thailand were also questioned about their health.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Sihasak Phuangketkeow said the ministry had asked the Thai Embassy in Paris to get details about the tourists and their trip. Public Health Minister Suchai Chareonrattanakul has in turn asked the Department of Disease Control to get details from the World Health Organisation and the French health ministry.

Dr Charin Trinvuthipong, assistant to Agriculture Minister Khunying Sudarat Keyuraphan, said it was impossible for the tourists to contract avian influenza just because they visited a zoo. He noted that people who contract the deadly H5N1 virus must have had close contact with infected birds, such as touching their saliva or mucus or slaughtering the birds.

He was backed up by Teeraphat Patthanarangsan, a veterinarian from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Veterinarian Science. Teeraphat said that if zoos posed the threat of infection, then zookeepers would have contracted the disease first.

Dr Tawat Suntarajarn, director general of the Department of Disease Control, said he believed there was a “conspiracy” to damage tourism industry in Thailand. “If the tourists really have H5N1. Then how could their doctors allow them to return home?” he said.

If it is proven that any of the French tourists did indeed contract bird flu here, the impact on the tourism industry could be dire.

Vijit na Ranong, president of Thailand Tourism Industry Council, urged the Tourism Authority to beef up its campaign to restore tourists’ confidence in the ability of Thai authorities to control the spread of the disease. France is a major market for tourists to Thailand.

To date, there have been no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of the H5N1 virus, although health officials fear the influenza virus will mutate to allow this to happen. And that could lead to a deadly pandemic starting in Asia.

Agencies, The Nation