The avian influenza has already been under control in Thailand, but the livestock officials are still keeping on guard against the epidemic with unremitting efforts.

No new bird flu infection in poultry has been reported over the past 27 days after the latest bird-infected case was found in Nonthabury province in central Thailand, said Yukol Limlaemgthong, Director General of the Department of Livestock Development, in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Tuesday.

"Despite this, we still keep on monitoring and surveillance on the disease. Livestock officials in every province have to go to the village and destroy suspected birds whenever there is any report of the dead or sick birds on a farm," said Yukol.

Samples from sick chicken are continuing to be collected and sent for the laboratory test in a bid to monitor the newest development of the virus.

"We adopt a quick and active approach on disease control, which we figuratively called the X-ray approach," said Yukol.

Since October, a total of 52 confirmed bird-infected avian influenza cases have been diagnosed in Thailand. In October alone, 25 infections were found in the country, a sharp decline from the more than 400 detected cases over the same period last year.

Currently, nine provinces in central Thailand are closely monitored by the livestock officials.

Apart from disinfecting the risky chicken-raising fields, the livestock department also kept on controlling the movement of poultry to avoid prevalence of the virulent disease, according to Yukol.
 
In suspected areas of avian influenza, birds were ordered to be checked before being transferred to other places. Meanwhile, the destination farms or slaughter houses are required to meet the biosecurity and hygienic standard to ensure the safe movement of poultry.

Yukol said careful study has to be made on the bird flu outbreak including how the virus infected the poultry and how to root out the infection before taking countermeasures to contain the disease. To cover the risky farms with nets is also an effective way to prevent the contraction from other birds, he added.

Since October, a total of 300,000 birds have been culled in Thailand. After the suspected birds were destroyed to prevent avian-influenza infection, farmers could get 75 percent market price-compensation from the provincial authorities within 15 days, said the chief of the livestock department.

But if farmers in the avian flu-affected area refused to obey the order, they would be punished, according to the Epidemic Act.

In order to provide financial support for eliminating bird flu infection, the Thai government this year approved the allocation of 50 million baht emergency budget originally designated for natural disasters in each province to be used in fighting bird flu.

Since the third round of avian influenza struck the country early October, four Thais have been confirmed to contract the H5N1 virus. By far, 21 Thais have been diagnosed with bird flu, including 13 fatality, after the epidemic was first detected in early 2004.

The widely scared bird epidemic, while posing unprecedented danger to the health of poultry and even human beings, also inflicted a heavy blow on Thailand's export.

In 2003, export value of Thailand's chicken products topped 46 billion baht (US$1.15 billion). However, the figure slumped to 20.8 billion baht (US$520 million) in 2004 mainly due to the bird flu outbreak.

As Thailand has already changed from the past practice of exporting fresh frozen products to cooked chicken meat, some 270 billion tons of cooked chicken with a value of 30 billion baht (US$750 million) were expected to be exported in 2005, a 70 billion tons increase from the amount of exported chicken meat registered in 2004.

While elaborating on the country's ban on vaccine use to curb the avian influenza infection, Yukol said the main reason for not vaccinating poultry is that they want to know if there is sick birds on the farms.

"After vaccination, they look like healthy birds but may carry the virus, so we will not know whether there is virus on the farm or not," he said.

Since the commercial vaccines are usually not as effective as they claimed, vaccination may not mean the fully protection to birds. Besides, farmers will be less aware and may be exposed to a much dangerous environment if vaccinated birds shed the virus into their surroundings, noted Yukol.

Earlier reports showed that epidemiologists and veterinarians in Thailand have argued that vaccination in poultry could lead to the mutation of the H5N1 virus.

"Study shows that vaccination can accelerate the mutation of the bird flu virus, this is one point we have been taken into consideration for not using vaccines," said Yukol.

The head of livestock department suggested other Asian countries that are also under the bird flu strike to improve farm management and confine the movement of birds to prevent the spread of the lethal epidemic. To make vaccine more effective, sick or suspected birds are better to be separated from healthy ones before applying vaccination to the poultry.

Livestock officials should also assure that vaccinated birds develop an immunity strong enough to protect them from contracting the avian influenza virus, said Yukol.

(Xinhua News Agency December 8, 2005)