Myanmar has found the H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens in what is believed to be the country´s first case of the deadly disease, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday. The virus was detected after 112 chickens died in the central Mandalay region earlier this month, but there was no evidence of human infection, said Laurence Gleeson, a senior FAO official in Bangkok, citing a report by the Yangon government.
"They have carried out some tests and they believe that they have identified H5N1," Gleeson told Reuters. "We will be encouraging them to submit samples to a reference lab to confirm the findings and genetic makeup." The case emerged on March 8 when chickens began dying in large numbers in Mandalay´s Aung Myae Thar Zan Township. Officials destroyed a flock of 780 birds and sent samples to the central diagnostic laboratory in Yangon. The secretive military-ruled country is seen by some international health experts as a black hole in the global fight against the disease, which has killed 97 people worldwide. While neighbouring China, Thailand and Laos have been battling a disease which swept across much of Asia in late 2003, Myanmar´s junta had insisted the country was bird-flu free. Experts feared the virus would go unreported -- either through lack of surveillance or a government cover-up -- long enough to mutate into a form that passes more easily between humans and trigger a pandemic that could kill millions. Yangon later cooperated with U.N. agencies to step up surveillance in the countryside, including monitoring of prime stopover points for wild birds which could bring the virus from neighbouring countries. The government reported its findings on the Mandalay outbreak to the FAO and the OIE, the Paris-based international animal health body, on Monday.