Thailand brought in troops and prisoners on Sunday to kill millions of chickens and stop the spread of highly contagious bird flu, which has jumped to humans in Vietnam and Thailand and now spread to Indonesia.
With most people fearing contamination, 400 soldiers were drafted to kill the hens in Suphan Buri province north-west of Bangkok, Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchop told reporters. A hundred prisoners were also brought in.
"We have had labour problems.
It is difficult to find labourers as after the bird flu outbreak was confirmed, many of them are avoiding working on farms," Newin said.
All chickens in the province, a major area of production in a Thai industry that raises a billion chickens a year and earns $1.5 billion in exports, will be killed.
Thailand kills the hens by tying them up in sacks and burying them alive.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra tried to ease farmers fears on Sunday, promising them compensation, help with starting up again after the epidemic and a suspension of their debts.
China was the latest of many countries to ban Thai chicken imports. Last year, Beijing was widely accused of covering up an outbreak of the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
The World Health Organisation fears that if bird flu combines with human flu, a new strain could sweep through a human population with no immunity to it in an epidemic worse than Sars.
The WHO calls the near-simultaneous outbreaks in Asia "historically unprecedented".
INDONESIA CONFIRMS OUTBREAK: Indonesia confirmed an outbreak of the disease that has emerged in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Jakarta said on Sunday about 4.7 million chickens had died in the country since November, 60 percent from Newcastle disease, harmless to humans, and 40 percent from a combination of that and bird flu.
"It's been confirmed avian influenza exists, but no human cases so far," animal health director Tri Satya Putri Naipospos told reporters. Six people have died in Vietnam and two human cases have been confirmed in Thailand.
"There's no denying the disease is spreading," Anton Rychener, Vietnam representative for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, told Reuters.
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