BIRD FLU / BOOSTING REGIONAL COOPERATION
ACHARA ASHAYAGACHAT APINYA WIPATAYOTIN
The Nation (Thailand)
Senior officials from Thailand and other Mekong countries will gather in Bangkok next week to discuss increased cooperation in the fight against bird flu.
Despite no new recent cases, the disease remains a concern for the region.
Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said he hoped for pledges for closer cooperation and reaffirmation from countries taking part that there would be transparency in information exchanges about avian influenza.
The talks will be held on May 9.
The meeting of senior officials from the Agriculture, Health and Foreign Ministries of Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam is under the framework of the Irrawaddy-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy.
Representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organisation, United Nations Development Programme, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank will attend.
Thailand has unilaterally pledged a 100 million baht fund to support its neighbours fight a possible pandemic.
With the money, Thailand could address short-term needs including rapid deployment within a week to take care of the immediate needs of immediate neighbours, Mr Kantathi said.
Action plans and other specific needs from Thailand would also be discussed at the meeting, he said.
Thailand has another laboratory cooperation agreement to fight bird flu with Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Their experts held five days of talks in Bangkok which ended on Friday.
Chief of the Medical Sciences Department Paijit Warachit said Thailand pledged to provide mobile medical labs to detect the H5N1 virus if those countries request them.
William Aldis, the WHO representative to Thailand, stressed the importance of virus detection in controlling bird flu.
"But most importantly, the laboratory test's result must be correct and we need confidence in the test," he said.
Thailand and other countries in the region have discovered no major outbreaks of bird flu recently, but officials remain on full alert.
On Friday, Cambodian police said they had confiscated and destroyed tonnes of chicken meat and thousands of eggs in an effort to prevent the spread of bird flu after the products were smuggled in from Thailand, according to a news agency.
Sieng Son, deputy chief of police for the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey, said that on April 21 alone, his men had cooperated with Cambodian Customs and the Agriculture Ministry to seize and destroy 3,000 smuggled duck eggs being transported in one car.
The eggs had been brought in illegally through the remote and isolated former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Malai, where the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's second wife still lives.
Sieng Son said that in two months, officers had also confiscated 2,110kg of chicken meat, much of it coming through the isolated former Khmer Rouge border strongholds and destined for Phnom Penh.
He said police had warned the man caught with 3,000 duck eggs of the dangers of H5N1, the strain of bird flu that has been deadly in humans, and let him go with a warning.
However, he was told that authorities were going to begin jailing repeat offenders if they did not heed the warnings, Sieng Son said.
Despite no new recent cases, the disease remains a concern for the region.
Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon said he hoped for pledges for closer cooperation and reaffirmation from countries taking part that there would be transparency in information exchanges about avian influenza.
The talks will be held on May 9.
The meeting of senior officials from the Agriculture, Health and Foreign Ministries of Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam is under the framework of the Irrawaddy-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy.
Representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organisation, United Nations Development Programme, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank will attend.
Thailand has unilaterally pledged a 100 million baht fund to support its neighbours fight a possible pandemic.
With the money, Thailand could address short-term needs including rapid deployment within a week to take care of the immediate needs of immediate neighbours, Mr Kantathi said.
Action plans and other specific needs from Thailand would also be discussed at the meeting, he said.
Thailand has another laboratory cooperation agreement to fight bird flu with Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia. Their experts held five days of talks in Bangkok which ended on Friday.
Chief of the Medical Sciences Department Paijit Warachit said Thailand pledged to provide mobile medical labs to detect the H5N1 virus if those countries request them.
William Aldis, the WHO representative to Thailand, stressed the importance of virus detection in controlling bird flu.
"But most importantly, the laboratory test's result must be correct and we need confidence in the test," he said.
Thailand and other countries in the region have discovered no major outbreaks of bird flu recently, but officials remain on full alert.
On Friday, Cambodian police said they had confiscated and destroyed tonnes of chicken meat and thousands of eggs in an effort to prevent the spread of bird flu after the products were smuggled in from Thailand, according to a news agency.
Sieng Son, deputy chief of police for the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey, said that on April 21 alone, his men had cooperated with Cambodian Customs and the Agriculture Ministry to seize and destroy 3,000 smuggled duck eggs being transported in one car.
The eggs had been brought in illegally through the remote and isolated former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Malai, where the late Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's second wife still lives.
Sieng Son said that in two months, officers had also confiscated 2,110kg of chicken meat, much of it coming through the isolated former Khmer Rouge border strongholds and destined for Phnom Penh.
He said police had warned the man caught with 3,000 duck eggs of the dangers of H5N1, the strain of bird flu that has been deadly in humans, and let him go with a warning.
However, he was told that authorities were going to begin jailing repeat offenders if they did not heed the warnings, Sieng Son said.
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