Laboratory tests by Thailand's Public Health Ministry confirmed three suspected bird flu cases in two central provinces as negative to the H5N1 bird flu virus, a senior health official told media Friday.

According to Thawat Suntrajarn, director-general of the Department of Disease Control under the Public Health Ministry, the nine-year-old girl who died in hospital in the central province Lop Buri Thursday, as well as two patients hospitalized with flu symptoms in Chachoengsao, east to Bangkok, were not infected with the H5N1 virus but with Type A flu virus.

Thai News Agency quoted Thawat as saying that the girl had not had direct contact with chicken or other birds and the cause of death was believed to be severe pneumonia based on initial tests.

The other two suspected cases were a young man and a woman who worked in a slaughterhouse, but the ducks they processed were raised under sanitary conditions and were free of disease, according to Thawat. Moreover, there have been no suspicious deaths of poultry in the province.

Meanwhile, in a visit Friday to the northern bird flu-affected province of Phitsanulok, Vice Minister of the Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry Charal Trinvuthipong expressed satisfaction with the strict measures imposed in the lower northern region to monitor and contain the H5N1 bird flu outbreak.

According to Charal, two agriculture ministry inspectors- general will be responsible for monitoring operations in the northern provinces of Phitsanulok, Uttaradit and Sukhothai. Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan has also assigned local Livestock Development Department's director-general to head the surveillance operation in the Phichit province, where a young man died last month as the country's first fatality to bird-flu virus this year.

He said the ministry found the major reason for the spread of avian influenza in the region was the unwillingness of villagers with sick or dead birds to inform the authorities, out of fear that the government would kill all their poultry. On the other hand, illegal transport of poultry has fueled the spread of the virus.

The ministry now requires poultry farmers to inform local authorities immediately about suspicious death or sickness of birds, who otherwise will face harsh punishment including a fine of 4,000 baht (105 U.S. dollars), two-month jail sentence or both.

Meanwhile, public health authorities in the northern province of Nan reported that result of blood and phlegm tests for four suspected bird flu patients confirmed the four suffered common human influenza, not bird flu.

Source: Xinhua