Three More Die From Bird Flu in Asia

The deadly H5N1 form of bird flu has claimed another three lives in Asia, UN officials confirmed today.

The news came as European countries attempted to reassure their citizens following the arrival of the disease in the EU.

World Health Organization officials said two women who died within hours of each other in the Indonesian town of Bekasi, east of Jakarta, had suffered from H5N1. Their deaths took the number of bird flu victims in the country to 18.

Samples from a man who died with flu-like symptoms in Jakarta on Friday were also being sent for WHO laboratory confirmation, the Indonesian Health Ministry said.

A 20-year-old Chinese farmer who died in Hunan province on February 4 was the country’s eighth bird flu fatality, the WHO confirmed. The victim developed symptoms following the culling of poultry raised by her household.

At least 88 people worldwide have died from bird flu since 2003, according to the WHO. Almost all the deaths have been linked to contact with infected poultry, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, sparking a pandemic.

Two people with flu symptoms were admitted to hospital in northern Greece today following confirmation of the H5N1 strain in the country at the weekend.

A 15-year-old boy was released after tests showed he was negative for bird flu, while a 29-year-old hunter was still waiting for results.

Authorities confirmed that a fourth bird - a wild goose found on the Aegean island of Skyros - tested positive for the H5N1 virus after three swans around the northern gulf of Thermaikos were found to be carrying the disease.

The Italian health minister, Francesco Storace, today toured southern regions in which six wild swans infected with bird flu were found on Saturday, saying he wanted to calm fears about the virus.

Mr Storace arrived in Catania, Sicily, and planned to visit the regions of Calabria and Puglia on the Italian mainland. "We’re visiting all [the afflicted areas] to send a signal of calmness to citizens," he said. "We need to let the people know that there’s no risk for humans."

The cases in Italy and Greece marked the first time the highly infectious strain of the H5N1 virus had been detected within the EU.

Italian Health Ministry officials reiterated that the outbreak posed no immediate threat to people or domesticated bird flocks because only wild birds had been infected.

In line with international procedures, a 3km high-risk protection zone had been established around each outbreak area, along with a surveillance zone of an additional 7km.

Meanwhile, the Slovenian and Belgian authorities were continuing to investigate suspected cases of bird flu.

After the H5 virus was discovered in a swan yesterday, the Slovenian chief veterinary officer ordered farmers to feed their poultry indoors in order to reduce contact with wild birds.

Belgian health authorities said they were analyzing for signs of bird flu in a dead swan found outside a town near the Dutch border.

Elsewhere, Nigerian officials confirmed that bird flu - discovered in northern regions last week - could have spread to eight of the country’s 36 states.

The health minister, Eyitayo Lambo, told reporters the five new states with suspected H5N1 were Abuja, Katsina, Nasarawa, Yobe and Jigawa.

The Katsina information commissioner, Abdu Haro Mashi, said Nigerian vets were testing six dead chickens from a breeding farm in Katsina. The results could be available by the end of the week, he added.

Barry Schoub, the executive director of South Africa’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases, said the virus had probably spread over a much more extensive area in Nigeria, adding that he expected to see the large-scale destruction of birds.

"The Nigeria case is very, very concerning, because the spread in poultry appears to have been going on for quite some time and may well be more extensive," he told reporters.

Yesterday, samples taken from a Nigerian family with two sick children suspected of contracting bird flu were sent abroad for testing, Abdulsalam Nasidi, a federal Health Ministry official, said.