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COOKED chicken blamed for H5N1 bird flu death!!!
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[link to edition.cnn.com]
SNIP
New death as EU meets on bird flu
New wave of possible bird flu cases reported across Europe, Asia
(CNN) -- Europe´s top health officials are discussing how to thwart the spread of bird flu as the deadly H5N1 virus that has now hit the continent reared its head again in east and Southeast Asia.
Thailand on Thursday reported that a farmer had died from bird flu, the first victim to die in the country in more than a year.
The 48-year-old farmer, in Kanchanaburi province, west of the capital Bangkok, was the 13th person to die in Thailand, and takes the death toll in Asia since 2003 to more than 60. The man died after contracted the virus after slaughtering and eating an infected chicken.
Also in Asia, Taiwan´s Council of Agriculture said Thursday it had found birds infected with the lethal H5N1 flu in a container smuggled from China, the first case on the island since late 2003.
Taiwan coastguards seized the Panama-registered cargo on October 14, and tests confirmed about 1,000 birds were infected with the H5N1 virus, Reuters quoted an official as saying.
On Wednesday, China´s official Xinhua news agency reported 2,600 birds had been found dead of the H5N1 strain in the country´s northern grasslands, according to The Associated Press.
The H5N1 strain, which first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, re-emerged in 2003 in South Korea, and has spread to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Russia and Europe.
Most of the human deaths have been linked to contact with sick birds. But experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that can be transmitted between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
With the bird flu virus encroaching on Europe, health ministers from 25 European Union nations were meeting near London on Thursday to talk about how to keep the virus from jumping to humans, and how to respond if it does.
Several EU countries are already slaughtering suspect birds and Britain´s chief medical officer Liam Donaldson described the possibility of a human flu pandemic "public health enemy No. 1 and we are on the march against it."
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