Thai leopard dies of bird-flu

11.45am

BANGKOK - A rare Thai leopard, believed to be the first exotic animal to die from a bird flu virus which has killed 20 people in Asia, was fed raw chicken from two infected areas, zoo officials say.

The case has alarmed experts studying the H5N1 virus, which has afflicted millions of chickens and has now apparently made the leap into another animal species.

"It's the first time I have heard of such a case. This is another species and it is rare," said Happy K. Shieh, a veterinary medicine professor and bird flu expert at Taiwan's National Chung Hsing University.

"I just wonder if other species can get infected," he added.

Tests confirmed the ageing clouded leopard kept in a zoo near Bangkok had died of the H5N1 avian virus that has hit eight Asian countries so far.

The 14-year-old male cat died of respiratory problems on January 27, three days after falling ill. The Thai government had confirmed outbreaks of bird flu in the country on January 23.

"We think he got sick from the chicken we fed him," said Wanchai Tunwattana, a veterinarian at Kaokiew Zoo, 60km east of Bangkok.

A younger, stronger white tiger was also infected, but it managed to fend off the disease. The chicken fed to both animals came from two provinces where bird flu outbreaks were reported later, he said.

Thailand has slaughtered 30 million chickens in a bid to stamp out the disease, but the virus has reappeared in some areas thought to have been cleared.

The H5N1 virus had been found in fighting cocks in areas of eight provinces where culling was carried out and in ducks in one province previously untouched by the disease, the government said on Monday.

A few storks have also died of bird flu at two sanctuaries outside Bangkok and tests were under way to determine how widely the virus has spread.

In the wake of the leopard's death, a Chiang Mai zoo has quarantined its pair of pandas, one of the world's most endangered animals and its biggest draw, to cut the risk of them catching the flu.

"We have told zoo workers to keep making noise and waving their hands to scare wild birds away," said Tanapattana Ponpamorn of the Chiang Mai zoo, 700km north of Bangkok, as migrating birds are believed to spread the virus.

"Since the bird flu outbreak, we have not allowed the pandas to come out of their shelter and roam around their yard to keep them away from wild birds," the zoo director told Reuters.

Experts are worried the virus could infect a person who also has the human flu virus, allowing it to mutate into a strain that could spread through people with no immunity to it.

Earlier this month there were fears, quashed quickly by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, that the virus had infected pigs in Vietnam which could speed up the mutation process.

A fresh outbreak was reported in Japan on Tuesday, a day after Tibet confirmed its first case of the influenza.

- REUTERS