Word: flu
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...Ngan isn't worried about bird flu. In a Phnom Penh market stall encrusted with chicken excrement, the 30-year-old Cambodian sells live birds shipped fresh each morning from farms that border Vietnamese provinces that have been struck hard by the disease. But Ngan is confident her merchandise is safe. Her chickens "are exposed to the sunlight and can eat from the earth," she explains, "so the disease does not affect them." Besides, she adds, "only foreign chickens are affected, not the local ones...
...When it comes to bird flu, what you don't know can hurt you?and everyone else. Ngan is just one of many Cambodians clinging to reassuring misinformation about the disease. Cambodia recently became the third nation since 2004 to suffer a human fatality from bird flu, intensifying concerns that it will continue to spread. "The world is now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic," warned Dr. Shigeru Omi, the Western Pacific regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO), during an international bird-flu conference last week in Ho Chi Minh City. "The longer the virus...
...major concern in 1997, more than 140 million chickens and ducks across Asia have either died or been culled in a vain attempt to eradicate the disease. Bird infections lead directly to human infections?most recently a 21-year-old Vietnamese man who was confirmed with bird flu last Friday...
...international experts are now nervously scrutinizing the poultry flocks of Cambodia where birds and ducks are routinely raised in close proximity to human living quarters and sold live at unhygienic wet markets. In neighboring countries Thailand and Vietnam, such conditions led to the stubborn spread of bird flu, first among poultry, then in a handful of human beings. So far, Cambodia hasn't reported any major outbreaks, but Dr. Guan Yi, an avian-flu expert at the University of Hong Kong, fears it may already be entrenched there. "This virus is not just endemic in Vietnam and Thailand," he says...
...battle against bird flu hinges on information, cooperation and quick response?if the disease is spreading under the radar in Cambodia, it could wreck regional control efforts. With the help of the WHO, Cambodian officials have begun to slowly step up surveillance and education programs. But to contain the disease, Cambodia and its neighbors would need to radically modernize their animal husbandry practices, separating species (ducks are able to spread the virus without showing symptoms), keeping birds in pens and properly vaccinating flocks. The trouble is, such measures would require hundreds of millions of dollars to educate and equip poor...