the bird flu flew to PM’s hometown

penangites be alert! (esp. those in mainland). the deadly bird flu (H5N1) had been detected in kampung permatang bogak in kepala batas.

(picture taken from avianattack)

six kampung chickens in that village died on saturday (18 march) and the test result that came out yesterday (20 march) revealed the presence of the H5n1 virus in them.

veterinary services department director-general mustapa jalil confirmed the case and had alerted veterinary officers from the state dept. of penang to be on the scene. it is understood that 200 chickens from the farm (where the 6 chickens died) and within 1 km radius of the farm, would be culled last night. (no latest news yet on whether they had been culled).

this piece of news had also been picked up by the AFX news.

before the bird flu was detected in penang, i had already came across many people who were scared of eating chicken… and now this… i guess even more people would surely avoid chicken now. when the bird flu was first detected in gombak and setapak, i had blog about it, asking were people scary or wary of the bird flu. in that post of mine, i had also provided useful information about the bird flu taken from the WHO website and the CDC website. for penangites who are now nervous on hearing the news of the flu outbreak, it would help for you to hop over to those two useful sites to read more about the bird flu.

oh btw, why people were targetting on chicken when ‘birds’ here also means ducks or pigeons, or any kind of poultry or poultry products.

in the WHO website, it was stated that humans usually get infected by the virus through direct contact with the infected birds when the birds are alive… or through the birds’ faeces… not through consuming the birds. this is because the H5n1 virus is sensitive to heat – which means to say if the birds are properly cooked (no such thing is ‘medium done’ or ‘rare’), the virus will be killed off, thus no fear of getting infected.

i have no fear of continue eating chicken but my house people seems to be wary and wants to hold on to the adage ‘prevention is better than cure’ instead of drliew’s ‘eat first, die later’ adage (which i support strongly), so i guess no chicken for me at home. 🙁