To date, human cases have been reported in six countries, all of which are in Asia: Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. The fi rst patients in the current outbreak, which were reported from Vietnam, developed symptoms in December 2003 but were not confi rmed as H5N1 infection until 11 January 2004. Thailand reported its fi rst cases on 23 January 2004. The fi rst case in Cambodia was reported on 2 February 2005. The next country to report cases was Indonesia, which confi rmed its fi rst infection on 21 July. China’s fi rst two cases were reported on 16 November 2005. Confi rmation of the fi rst cases in Turkey came on 5 January 2006, followed by the fi rst reported case in Iraq on 30 January 2006. All human cases have coincided with outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in poultry.
To date, Vietnam has been the most severely affected country, with more than 90 cases.
Altogether, more than half of the laboratory- confi rmed cases have been fatal. H5N1 avian infl uenza in humans is still a rare disease, but a severe one that must be closely watched and studied, particularly because of the potential of this virus to evolve in ways that could start a pandemic.
Market Impact of Avian Flu to Poultry Industry in Asia
Background: (FAO Report 2004)
The Asian region affected by the spread of the avian fl u is estimated to house approximately 7 billion chickens, approximately 40 percent of global totals. The region’s share of global poultry meat output is lower--at 27 percent-- due to lower slaughter rates and weights than in developed countries. China and Thailand account for nearly 65 and 7 percent, respectively, of the region’s estimated production of 20 million tonnes.
As of January 2004, estimates of Asian poultry culled due to Avian Infl uenza have exceeded 20 million birds. This accounts for less than one percent of the region’s total inventories (see Table 1 for a list of affected countries).
The South East Asia region accounts for approximately one-quarter of world poultry trade (including re-exports from Hong Kong) with China and Thailand the largest exporters.
Accounting for 15 percent of global poultry shipments, China and Thailand are estimated to have exported almost 1.1 million tonnes in 2003, more than half of which went to Japan (see trade fl ow data in Appendix). To-date, many of the major poultry importing countries have banned poultry imports from both countries.
China Poultry Industry
Overview of poultry and its products (FAO Workshop)²
The poultry industry has been developed rapidly in recent years in China. Breeding size and gross output have reached a new level, and poultry products supply has met demand. Industrialization is accelerating, a group of corporations integrating feed production, breeding, manufacture and sale have been established.
In 2002, national poultry for slaughter was 8,328.94 million, including 5,245.73 million broilers (chicken raised for meat consumption). Poultry for slaughter from premises which had an annual inventory over 10,000 broilers each was 1,545.18 million, comprising 18.6% of the total for slaughter. By the end of 2002, the national poultry inventory was 4,799.85 million, including 3,923.60 million chickens, 661.25 million ducks, 215 million geese. Egg poultry inventory was 2,374.58 million, including 655.99 million from egg poultry premises which had over 2,000 egg poultry inventory each, comprising 27.6% of the total. It was obvious that although China’s total poultry output had reached a higher level, intensive farming is not very popular.
Now, Chinese national poultry egg production takes the fi rst place in the world, occupying one third of the world total, and poultry meat takes the second place in the world. In 2002, poultry meat production was 13.53 million tons, comprising 19.9% of the animal meat, including 9.48 million ton chicken meat, 2.12 million ton duck meat, 1.93 geese meat million ton. In 2003, Chinese national poultry egg production was 26.07 million tons, 5.8 % higher than that of in 2002.
The breeding levels vary in different regions in China. In general, in the central and eastern part of China, breeding industries are more developed. The main intensive poultry breeding farms are distributed in East China and Central-South China, such as Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan, Hebei, Sichuan, and Guangdong. In these six provinces, poultry inventory contains 57.3% of the total in the country.
As of 2006, China has 90 cases of outbreak, in which 19 humans were infected resulting in 8 deaths. China home bred poultry equates to 20.8% of the world total poultry population. China home bred poultry equates to more than 40% of Asia’s total poultry population, producing over 14 billion poultry in 2005.
Currently, China has a total of 645,000 government appointed observers/inspectors, and have implemented a nation-wide vaccination program vaccinating 4.88 billion poultry as of June 2006³ . China has developed 2 testing processes: RT-PCR and ELISA, and will soon be implementing new regulations to enforce mandatory regular checks on poultry and other animals as well.
² Workshop On Social And Economic Impacts Of Avian Infl uenza Control, 8-9 December 2004
³ http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-09/05/content_5052283.htm
