Thailand wants a shot at bird flu
vaccine By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - As Thailand comes to grips with
another outbreak of bird flu, the government appears
keen to go down the risky road of vaccinating poultry as
a potent countermeasure to stall the spread of this
lethal disease.
Thailand's turn toward vaccination, however, goes
against some current thinking that still places faith on
culling as the best countermeasure to curb the
disease. That thinking stems from concerns over the
difficulty countries would have in differentiating between
vaccinated and unvaccinated poultry.
It could lead to the
disease spreading "through trade or movement of
apparently uninfected birds", state research findings
posted on the website of the Paris-based World
Organization for Animal Health (known by its French
acronym OIE). "For this reason, export bans have been
imposed on countries enforcing a vaccination policy," it
adds.
But on Tuesday,
Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisaeng, who is
heading a government committee to contain the avian influenza,
gave the green light for Thailand's researchers to
experiment with vaccines best suited for this Southeast
Asian country. The outcome of such efforts should help
the government pursue a comprehensive program to contain
bird flu, he was quoted as having told the local press
this week.
This move marks a departure from the
position Thailand maintained toward vaccines at the
beginning of this year, when two-thirds of the country's
76 provinces were infected by the lethal H5N1 strain of
avian flu. Soon after the government confirmed on
January 23 that Thailand had cases of bird flu, it
slapped a ban on attempts to experiment with potential
bird-flu vaccines.
"There are two different
vaccines that are available, but currently there is no
vaccine registered in Thailand," Hans-Gerhard Wagner,
senior animal production and health officer at the
Asia-Pacific office of the Food and Agricultural
Organization (FAO), told Inter Press Service (IPS).
Vaccine tests could last two months, he said,
adding that it is up to the Thai government to decide
after that whether "the use of vaccines is good or not
good" to counter bird flu.
Bangkok's current
move to consider vaccinating poultry has yet to factor
in the possible economic fallout of such a decision.
Thailand's poultry industry is one of the
lifelines for the country's economy. It is the world's
fourth-largest poultry exporter, with earnings last year
of about US$1.2 billion (49 billion baht).
The
country's poultry sector took a sizable beating when
bird flu was confirmed early this year; leading
importers such as Japan slapped bans on Thai chicken
products and even domestic consumers turned up their
noses at poultry dishes. At that time, Thailand joined
seven other Asian countries hit by bird flu to mount
what is still deemed by agencies such as the OIE and FAO
as the best method to quash the lethal virus - culling
poultry in infected areas. By the end of March, when it
appeared that bird flu was on the wane, more than 100
million chickens in eight Asian countries, including
China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, had been
slaughtered or died due to the disease.
The
impact of the H5N1 virus in Vietnam and Thailand was
most troubling, with 15 human deaths due to avian flu in
Vietnam and seven such fatalities in Thailand. Thailand
alerted health authorities about the increasing danger
of this virus, which is transmitted through the air and
is released in nasal secretions and the feces of
infected birds. The frightening prospect is that the
virus can be transmitted from birds to humans and has
the potential to trigger a global pandemic. That danger
arose in 1997, when an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of
avian flu in Hong Kong infected 18 residents, killing
six of them.
There is currently a fear that
avian flu could morph into a pandemic that could be more
devastating than AIDS. There are two reasons for that:
the ease with which this lethal influenza could spread,
and the lack of a natural human response against the
virus.
Since bird flu reared its ugly head again
this month in three Asian countries - China, Indonesia
and Thailand - the World Health Organization (WHO) has
sounded the alarm, given that "the virus may be even
more difficult [to contain] than thought in the spring".
Quoting a recent report published in the journal Nature,
the Geneva-based United Nations health agency states
that "domestic and wild birds in the region may have
contributed to the increasing spread of the virus" and
suggests that "the virus is gaining a stronger foothold
in the region".
Dr Kumara Rai, acting WHO
representative for Thailand, told IPS, "Our main worry
is the people who will be culling infected birds. They
have to wear protective clothing."
Indonesia is
of particular concern, he said, since people involved in
culling chickens in the archipelago at the beginning of
this year were not properly equipped with protective
gear.
The WHO's concern comes amid reports that
the new outbreak of bird flu - which has resulted in
more than 90,000 chickens and ducks being killed or
dying due to the disease in China, Indonesia and
Thailand - appears to be more potent.
Chinese
researchers published a study at the beginning of July
stating that "the virus appears to be widespread in
domestic ducks in southern China". Further, the
scientists found that the virus is causing an
increasingly severe form of the disease, said the WHO.
Meanwhile, the best hope of protecting people -
a vaccine for bird flu - is not imminent either.
"Efforts to produce a bird-flu vaccine for humans are
under way, but it will take a few years for that to come
out," said Rai. "We need more sample strains from the
affected areas for an efficient vaccine."
