My own feeling is that once it hits Africa, it's over. But then I don't see a lot more infrastructure in Indonesia. Africa is just more vast, more impenetrable and far more variable. It's the cradle of life, but also death.
Thu Oct 20, 2005 3:27 PM BST
By Panarat Thepgumpanat
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Bird flu has taken another human life, officials said on Thursday -- a 48-year-old Thai man who was the 67th person known to have been killed by a virus steadily creeping from Asia into Europe and towards Africa.
In Indonesia, possible clusters of bird flu among members of the same family raised concern the virus had already mutated into a strain that can pass from human to human, which could start a global pandemic that scientists say could kill millions.
"With the increase of clusters the possibility has to be thoroughly examined that the virus might have changed and could possibly spread from human to human," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari was quoted as saying by the state news agency.
"The guy was infected with bird flu because he took a sick chicken, slaughtered it and then ate it," Thaksin said.
Health authorities do not consider eating well-cooked chicken meat to be a risk, but contact with infected chickens or ducks is a known method of transmission.
Bang-on Benpad was the first Thai killed by the disease in a year, and the first human fatality since an Indonesian woman died last month. The virus has killed at least 44 people in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, six in Indonesia and four Cambodians.
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Taiwan's Agriculture Council said it had found infected birds in a container smuggled from China, the first case on the island since late 2003. In the cargo of 1,037 birds, 276 were found dead and of a sample of 46, eight tested positive for avian flu. The cargo was mostly rare birds to be sold as pets.
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