Thailand defends its chickens
From Tom Mintier
CNN
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Sales for chickens in Thailand have plunged despite officials denying bird flu has affected farms.
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Thailand reassures the public poultry is safe to eat.
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BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- More than 800,000 chickens have died in Thailand just a few hundred miles from Vietnam's infamous bird flu, which claimed its fifth life at the weekend.
But despite the bird flu epidemic ravaging farms in parts of Asia, Thailand's Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Newin Chidchob, said they have tested chickens and there are no cases of bird flu in the country.
"We have found no trace of bird flu. No disease was found and nothing abnormal occurred in Thailand," he said.
Government officials claim the chickens either died from fowl cholera, or bronchitis. But in a bid to allay any alarm they have increased checkpoints of poultry shipments to slaughterhouses.
Thailand's populist Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, has vowed to serve chicken at this week's Cabinet meeting to demonstrate the safety of eating local poultry.
"We would do that with the whole-hearted effort to show that there is no linkage... It's more psychological than real," Thai government spokesman, Jakrapob Penkair, said.
The stakes are high. Thailand produces more than one billion birds each year and is Asia's top chicken exporter to Europe.
Thaksin met European Union health commissioner David Byrne for more than an hour on Monday.
But a spokesman said chicken was not on the agenda. The meeting was scheduled long before the outbreak of bird flu and its intention was to talk about food safety standards in Thailand.
A local TV commercial is also trying to convince Thais their chickens are safe to eat. It says in part: "Don't look at this as only a chicken farm -- this is the kitchen for all the people in the world."
In nearby Vietnam, the economic toll is already evident as farmers slaughter chickens and ducks in an effort to curb the deadly bird flu.
The World Health Organization has confirmed five Vietnamese have died from the H5N1 strain of flu, which has also wiped out more than 1 million of the nation's poultry.
This is typically the busiest time of the year for the chicken trade because of the approaching lunar New Year.
But authorities are adamant there is no link between the chicken cholera devastating Thailand's poultry stocks and the bird flu which is ravaging Vietnam.
