Chinese Suspected Of Hiding Bird Flu Cases
Written by Rupert Kircz | Thursday, 05 February 2009 | There are 7 comments
The Chinese government is extremely sensitive to criticism
The Chinese government is suspected of yet again covering up the deadly H5N1 bird flu after over twenty chickens and ducks were washed up on beaches in neighboring Hong Kong. When they were tested some of them were found to have had the H5N1 avian flu virus. In view of the fact that there are no farms with birds near to where the dead poultry were found it is likely that they came from the Pearl River delta region in China. Experts said that the evidence pointed to an outbreak in China but as of yet the government was not cooperating and admitting that there was a problem.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation issued a statement saying that they also believed that there must have been an outbreak of the deadly bird flu among poultry in China but did not go far as to accuse the Chinese government of covering up anything. The Chinese government has in the past tried to suppress the full extent of outbreaks especially in the case of the SARS outbreak back in 2003 when government officials did not tell Hong Kong about the problem until six months after it had begun.
The sharing of information about bird flu is essential in order to be able to contain it and also to help scientists to monitor where the next outbreaks are likely to be. The Chinese government however is extremely sensitive to criticism and world opinion and therefore has been less than completely open with bird flu statistics in the past.
Officially Indonesia has the greatest number of bird flu cases reported however some people suspect that in fact China has suffered from the bird flu in birds and in humans much more than Indonesia but has just quickly covered up the evidence. The Chinese government needs to be a made aware of the dangers of withholding information about the bird flu virus and also needs to stop thinking that a bird flu virus outbreak in their country is something to be ashamed of.
There are 7 comments on this article.
John Sexton said:
Just who are the "some people" who say China has really had more cases of bird flu than Indonesia? You don't cite any sources so is it just you and a few friends?
Rupert said:
"Some people" are sources from the World Health Organisation who can't accuse China of doing this without hard proof because of the uproar that it will cause. There have been attempts at bird flu cover ups all over the world especially from farmers who don't want all of their poultry culled. The evidence points to higher bird flu numbers from China especially in view of the fact that the Chinese have done it before and been caught, (remember SARS?)
John Sexton said:
If you did the slightest bit of research on the subject you would find that Indonesia has been very credibly accused of covering up bird flu outbreaks - by among others the Washington Post. So where does that leave your argument? The WHO reports 24 cases and 15 deaths in China, 81 cases and and 63 deaths in Indonesia. Perhaps both sets of figures are underestimates because there are obvious disincentives to poor farmers to report an outbreak where little compensation is available. But you seem to be suggesting the WHO is suppressing the real data for political expediency. Are you serious?
Rupert said:
If you did the slightest bit of research on the subject...the official statistics from the WHO show China as having 38 cases and 25 deaths from the H5N1 virus and Indonesia as having 141 cases and 115 deaths.
Look at http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/country/cases_table_2009_02_02/en/index.html
So where does that leave your argument? At Ukmedix News we report opinions and facts. You might not agree with the opinions but at least we get our facts right....
John Sexton said:
So I gave the WHO stats for a previous year. So what? The proportions are the same more than 4:1 higher in Indonesia - maybe 8:1 per capita. Are you still saying the WHO is suppressing the real situation in China?
Rupert said:
John, I never said that the WHO was supressing the real situation. I merely said that some people, i.e. health workers, bird flu experts and some WHO officials believed that China could be suppressing data. We are talking about a country which doesn't have a free press and restricts internet access. (They can't read this for sure).
lisaloo99 said:
Right, 8 people in China have H5N1 this year but no birds have it. China is crocked. They are too busy with money matters to test for h5n1. just ask Hong Kong, they know the truth.
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