Bird flu found in Laos

I know Laos seems very remote to most of you, but my ex-wife is a refugee from Laos (it was part of the Indochinese war too along with Vietnam, but we never sent direct combat troops there, and it's still a communist regime), but it points up part of the problem of fighting bird flu.

Laos was extremely poor before the communists took over, and hasn't been developed much since then. So most people live in remote rural areas. Some of the rural areas are extremely remote. Many of the people are actually hill tribes who practice slash and burn agriculture in the mountains.

Or used to -- not sure of the communist government still allows that. But anyway, they don't have the resources to monitor chickens and ducks for bird flu. Or people either for that matter.

It's possible that people have caught it, but no cases have been reported.

And it's also possible that the really remote areas are so separated from the rest of the world that they haven't been exposed to avian flu yet. (But that isolation makes them all the more open to H5N1 from migratory birds.)

bird flu found again in Laos



Bird Flu in Laos
Bird Flu in Laos