Myanmar bans poultry imports from India due to bird flu

YANGON, Aug 4, 2007 (AFP)

Military-ruled Myanmar has banned poultry imports from India following an outbreak of bird flu last month in the neighbouring country, state media said Saturday.

The ban was effective Saturday, the Mirror newspaper said, without giving details on how much poultry Myanmar imports from India.

Myanmar is under Western economic sanctions over its human rights abuses, including the house arrest of 62-year-old democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but the junta has close economic and diplomatic ties with India.

Myanmar on Tuesday detected its second outbreak of bird flu in less than a month, but so far has not reported any human cases of avian influenza. India reported an outbreak of bird flu among poultry in late July, the first since it declared itself free of the deadly disease last August.

The World Health Organisation has so far recorded 319 cases of bird flu in humans worldwide, 192 of which were fatal. Experts fear the death toll could rise sharply if the virus were to mutate and become easily transmissible between humans.