In October of 2004, Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan wrote a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking it to help spread knowledge amongst other countries about the positive steps Thailand had been taking to prevent the spread of bird flu.

A three-pronged attack was launched to deal with bird flu. This involved effective checking of infected chickens, quick diagnosis of bird flu in humans and the killing of infected poultry.

The Ministry of Public Health stated that no information or truth about bird flu would be concealed from the public.

While this suggests that the nation has the disease under control, the latest outbreaks of bird flu have highlighted significant problems in Thailand’s surveillance and public education systems and suggested that the people of Thailand have been continually left in the dark with regards to what is really going on.

Behind closed doors – what don’t we know?

In spite of all of the government’s promises and media campaigns, the bird flu mystery is still confusing the people of Thailand and highlighting the deceitful nature of the people in control.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has gone on record as saying that it is “unlikely the outbreak will expand,” and yet Thaksin himself has been giving out confusing information.

At the end of July this year Thailand reported its first bird flu related fatality in seven months. The 17-year-old boy from the Pichit province in the north allegedly caught the disease from one of his fighting cocks. Thaksin initially identified the boy as a 16-year-old from neighbouring Phetchabun province. If the prime minister cannot even get his facts right on the most basic of levels, what are we to think about the bigger picture?

Media facts and figures have supported an impressive and extensive range of measures that have been taken to combat bird flu in Thailand, but these are only facts and figures, and all evidence suggests the virus is still spreading.

Out of control – what does it all mean?

This was the fifteenth death in Thailand at the hands of bird flu. Interestingly, when the case of the 17-year-old boy was first announced in the media, it was paired with a series of confusing figures relating to other suspected cases of bird flu all over the country. The story began out as a suspected case of bird flu, but it snowballed to a confirmed death with a large number of suspected cases across the nation. The numbers ranged from 80 to over 120.

The fact that out of nowhere, in a time when Thailand had laid claim to having control of bird flu, at least 80 suspected cases were under surveillance, suggests that information is slow to reach the public, and even when it does, it is often confusing and unclear. The issue remains that these people were under surveillance before the media got hold of the story.

In a further effort to present to the people a scenario of control, the acting government was slow to divulge the facts and acted in direct contradiction to how it promised. Thaksin would claim, of course, to have had Thailand’s best interests at heart.

A further outbreak of bird flu was announced on July 30 in Nakhon Phanom province. Officials immediately ordered the slaughtering of 300,000 chickens. This seems to be a growing trend, as a number of extreme measures are taken out in a short space of time, but what is going on in between these times? If there is potential for global pandemic then surely the public has a right to know all the facts all the time, and not just at the last possible moment when there is no other alternative.

Another bird flu death occurred in the beginning of August this year in Uthai Thani in the north. The 27-year-old man allegedly contracted the disease after burying a large number of chickens who had contracted bird flu and died. Since this death, scores of people in Thailand have been tested for symptoms of H5N1, including at least five in and around Bangkok.

Disaster zones – a crisis out of nowhere

On August 8 cabinet and government officials announced that 29 of Thailand’s 76 provinces had been declared disaster zones. A number of precautionary measures were implemented to prevent the spread of bird flu, including 65 million baht allocated to compensate framers whose birds are culled as a result of suspected bird flu, as was reported by Thai Day.

The information that is fed to the media primarily comes through government sources, such as statements from the Ministry of Public Health, and so the media effectively becomes plagued by the government’s own agenda on the issues at hand.

Let us not forget that Thailand is the world’s fourth biggest poultry exporter. Charoen Pokphand Foods, Thailand’s biggest poultry exporter, announced that its second quarter earnings plummeted 63%. The company went some way to underlining a statement that bird flu had not been the instigator for the drop in profits, instead blaming declining domestic chicken prices, as was reported by Manager Online.

The very real impact that bird flu may pose on tourism and industry in Thailand is perhaps one reason why the media has been awash with government statements continually proclaiming the situation to be under control. The risks of bird flu are often downplayed and therefore there is continual confusion about the issues at hand.

Science over propaganda

In September of last year a report contained in a Recombinomics Commentary outlined that scientific evidence based on the study of bird flu between 2004 – 2005 cast “serious doubts on the lack of human cases in 2005.” The report outlined that the lack of reported cases is cause for concern and placed some doubt over Thailand’s intervention programme.

Despite government reassurances that everything is being done to control bird flu, there are those scientists who think otherwise. The media is a tool that has been used to give the impression that everything is fine and that there is nothing to worry about. This was the case until the recent outbreaks received major media attention in a very short space of time. For 29 provinces to be declared disaster zones so suddenly raises suspicion that bird flu cases have been monitored for some time without information being shared with the public.

Bird flu outbreaks evidently make for bad business and the government has been actively seeking to control the facts rather than the actual situation.

A further Recombinomics Commentary has suggested that Thailand has misrepresented the number of recorded bird flu fatalities as far back as 2004. If it is true that Thailand has been misrepresenting information regarding bird flu, then the question must be asked ‘why?’ All logic would seem to point to attempting to save the ever-flailing economy.

On August 7 a man was rushed to hospital in downtown Bangkok with bird flu like symptoms. The patient was lab tested as positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus. This is part of a sudden and dramatic increase in lab tested, positive bird flu cases. It is made all the more concerning as it is occurring in different provinces across the country.

To further complicate the matter, the media has reported a number of cases of bird flu, some resulting in fatalities, that have consequently been diagnosed as seasonal flu. The number of deaths this year due to seasonal flu has already passed 300, which is “exceedingly high” and equates to a 5% fatality rate of influenza. The fatality rate for seasonal flu from year-to-year is typically much lower, as was reported in a Recombinomics Commentary. This suggests that some cases of bird flu may be being misdiagnosed as seasonal flu.

The recent outbreaks have raised further concerns that H5N1 may be mutating and becoming better adopted for humans. There are increasing numbers of H5N1 strains that are capable of producing fatal infections.

Word from the street

The problems are real, but are people concerned? Will, 29, a French expatriate working as a university lecturer in Bangkok said “I’m not really scared about bird flu as it’s been around since I arrived here 3 years ago. Surely wrongly, I tend to think that the flu is pretty much a rural thing, where people living in the countryside are much more exposed than us living in Bangkok.”

All evidence suggests that contraction of bird flu comes primarily from contact with dead or dying birds infected with the virus.

There is a common misconception, however, that bird flu cannot pass between humans. Whilst the evidence is thus far inconclusive, there are increasing numbers of signs that bird flu has been passed between humans. One probable case occurred in Thailand in 2004.

A story that appeared in the New York Times in June suggested that there have been many more human-to-human contractions of bird flu than had previously been thought. The World Health Oganisation has until recently stated that human-to-human cases have been few and far between, and yet clusters of cases, including in Thailand, have led some to now suspect that “we are probably underestimating the extent of person-to-person transmission,” said Dr Angus Nicoll, chief of flu activities at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Stockholm.

Dr Nicoll, in the New York Times report, went on to say that it is difficult for doctors from Geneva to come to countries and effectively assess any given bird flu situation because by the time the doctors arrive, the authorities have usually culled all of the chickens and essentially blocked large areas of research. Further problems are caused by cases in remote villages, where there is perhaps scepticism about talking about the problem for fear of the repercussions. This sounds very much like the case in Thailand.

There are growing levels of information that the Thai government has neglected to feed the public in favour of confusing the issue with figures. There appears to be some ideology in Thailand that if the numbers are big enough then they must suggest that everything is under control. Kill 300,000 chickens and the problem must be dealt with, but what most people don’t realize is that killing 300,000 chickens also covers up the problem.

Other question marks hang above the issue, as the New York Times again reported. Figures announced by the World Health Organisation only account for confirmed laboratory cases, using no names and often cleared by the affected country’s health minister. This would raise suspicion of the Thai Ministry of Public Health’s dealings with bird flu figures should it be the case that Thailand has been misrepresenting the numbers of infected people.

Confusion from the street

A further misconception about bird flu comes in the form of people deciding not to eat poultry products. All scientific evidence points towards it being near impossible to contract bird flu by eating chicken alone.

“3 years ago when the flu appeared I stopped eating chicken for few weeks,” continued Will. “Chicken and eggs are the basis of so many Thai dishes and so I couldn’t stay long without eating them.”

Kwang, 22, a Thai woman living and working in Bangkok added: “I went to a place where I usually eat ‘somtam’ yesterday, and the woman there doesn’t sell grilled chicken like she used to anymore. She told me that people are afraid of contracting bird flu so she can’t sell it now.”

A story written by an Agence France-Presse reporter on August 8 suggests that levels of confusion are high. A number of Thais celebrating Chinese ancestor festival abandoned the traditional meal of boiled chicken in favour of fast food. These do not sound like the actions of a knowledgeable general public.

Will continued with an interesting observation: “The Thai government [initially] hid the first outbreak for quite some time. The government then apologised saying they didn’t want to alarm the people. I thought that press freedom is only an illusion here and if a government can hide that from us, I might be ready to face the worst.”

Once again, the government claims to have the country’s best interests at heart, but this suggests that information can be covered up at any time under this flimsy notion of our best interests.

Misconceptions and a lack of trust for the government seem to be plaguing the very real issues at hand that are all pointing towards the ever increasing possibility of a pandemic. The government has time and time again proved that it cannot be trusted in regards to informing the public. The case is no different now.

Techno’ tags: Bird, Flu, Bangkok, Thailand, Asia