Thailand's Ministry of Public Health acted decisively Tuesday to implement strict measures to prevent bird flu infections in humans after the reappearance of the H5N1 virus found in ducks last week in the northern province of Phitsanulok.

Lab tests will be conducted to check whether the N1 virus detected in wild birds in the central province of Suphan Buri is the H5N1 virus or not, said Chaweewan Leowijuk, Deputy Director General of the Department of Livestock Development.

However, the department ordered the province and nearby provinces to increase preventive measures to the highest immediately, the staterun Thai News Agency said.

Disease Control Department Director-General Thawat Suntrajarn warned that it might take a month before the avian influenza is found in human after bird flu virus was confirmed in several ducks in Phitsanulok Monday.

Thawat urged that all persons, especially farmers, having close contact with poultry -- dead or alive -- take special precautions to avoid contracting the deadly viral disease. Symptoms resembling bird flu in any patient requires immediate medical attention.

In Phitsanulok, where lab tests confirmed a new outbreak of bird flu, Provincial Livestock Office director Methee Ket-adisorn called an emergency meeting of all nine district chiefs to ensure close surveillance of poultry in the province.

Methee said that teams of livestock officials will be assigned to cull poultry within a radius of five kilometers from a duck farm in a central district of Phitsanulok, 377 kilometers north of Bangkok, where the bird flu virus was found.

Although there has been no report of human infection so far, Thawat said the ministry has adopted aggressive measures to prevent the outbreak.

Health volunteers are meeting villagers to survey possible suspicious poultry deaths. Hospitals in at-risk areas and areas which earlier experienced the outbreak have stockpiled flu vaccines and the anti-viral medicine Oseltamivir.

All provinces will have set up "war rooms" to cooperate with the Surveillance and Rapid Response Team (SRRT), he said.

Meanwhile, there were reports of human infections only from chickens. There is little chance that human will be infected with the bird flu virus from wild birds, he said.

Source: Xinhua