Bird flu continues to take lives in SEA

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent

KUALA LUMPUR, February 20 (IslamOnline.net) – Humans and cats are to blame for the recent spread of life-threatening diseases related to animals, including Bovine Spongiform Encephalophathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, avian influenza, also known as bird flu, and dengue hemorrhagic fever, experts revealed to IslamOnline.net Friday, February 20.

“These diseases are becoming the ‘cholera’ and ‘malaria’ of the modern times, and are bound to ravage livestock and human life alike if serious considerations are not given on how to tackle them,” said Professor Hakiem Loqman, a member of the Indonesian Veterinary Association (IVA) in Riau province.

He said to IOL that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) as well as major developed nations should consider revising their views about these diseases.

The Doctor added that human ‘interference’ in the habits of these animals caused the dangerous flu and other diseases to spread like wild fires, threatening humans with more deadly viruses than the cholera and malaria, which are now under full control worldwide.

The IVA this week made it clear to the press in Indonesia that it was more or less the human factor that has caused a mutation of the mad cow and the avian influenza resulting in their transmission to humans.

The scientifically-respected association blamed the outbreak of diseases on the forced change in the ecosystem caused by humans, adding that the cause of the bird flu could well be in what the birds are being fed and how livestock are being reared in the world today.

Hakiem told IOL that in Indonesia there were little chances of an outbreak of mad cow since cows in the country were still dependent on grass, which is the natural food source for bovine rearing.

“In the West, they feed the cows ‘bone meals’ and that has caused mad cow to attack the cows. They turned the cows into cannibals, something that was not supposed to happen,” he said.

Mad cow and avian influenza are found among cows and poultry and only infect animals but it became deadly to humans with the bird flu alone killing scores of infected people in South East Asia.

There are no reported deaths in Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia since the bird flu seems to be causing many ravages in Vietnam and Thailand.

“Look into what the poultry is being fed and make sure chickens are reared among chickens, not among other birds such as ducks and goose or cats,” said Hakiem.

The International Herald Tribune last week reported a study that found a new form of mad cow disease in Italy.

Scientists believe that it may be the cause of some cases of a human brain-wasting disease known as Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease (CJD), which is the human form of mad cow disease.

Last year, a total of 153 cases of CJD cases were reported worldwide. Of these, 143 had occurred in the UK.

On Thursday, February 19, Thailand ordered an urgent probe into the deaths of 196 cattle over concerns that they may have died from bird flu, as the deadly virus was reportedly discovered in a pet cat.

If confirmed, the cat could be the first domesticated mammal to be reportedly infected by the virus that has killed 22 people across Asia.

A clouded leopard died from bird flu last month in a zoo near Bangkok.

Indonesian cows are still fed on grass

The virus was discovered in the cat by researchers at the Animal Hospital of Kasetsart University in Bangkok.

A spokesman at the University said there were no other cases of leopard or tigers catching the flu recently but that everything were being done to control the virus.

“We do not know how the cat got that flu. Its probably coming from the food that is infected by birds or something that we are yet to uncover,” said the spokesman who did not disclose his name.

If the cat is confirmed having the bird flu, it could well be the first cat in the world to be infected and this will definitely cause panic across the globe since cats are mainly domesticated pets.

Also in Thailand, the cattle which died early this month were from Kalasin province, 430km north-east of Bangkok, reported the Bangkok Post Friday.

Agriculture officials told the newspaper they would be unable to conduct lab tests for bird flu from the cattle's carcasses because the animals had been eaten by villagers or sent to slaughterhouses.

An official from the Kelantan state in Malaysia, which borders Thailand, told IOL over the phone that there were little chances that the bird flu or mad cow from Thailand could reach Malaysia.

“We do not feed our cows on ‘bone meal’ or any other food with animal contents and our chickens are reared in fully secure areas,” said Zizah Wan Maktum, who works for a government agency in Kelantan.

She said there were fears though that the virus could be transmitted through humans and that the state had taken steps to check visitors coming to Kelantan from south Thailand.

“That is the only thing we can do, other than that we are informing the cattle and livestock farmers to take all precautions to separate animals found to be sick from the rest, that way we hope we can control the situation,” she added.

She also said she believed the entire situation of the outbreak of the bird flu and mad cow developed due to changes in the way the animals were fed and kept.

“Growth enhancing additives are given to chickens to fatten them and make them grow larger and faster and I believe we may have a problem with that and this could be the origin of a mutated virus that is now known as the bird flu,” said the vet from Kelantan.