The first cases of the bird flu have been found in Kuala Lumpur among domestic chickens. That’s right, not in wild birds.

One wonders why wild birds always seem to take the rap, when there is still no evidence to show that the spread is caused by migration and the pattern of spread doesn’t really seem to follow migration routes all that closely. Wild birds appear to be more victims than anything else. After all – would you embark on a 5,000 mile journey, without the benefit of an airplane, if you had the flu?

Perhaps migration plays a part, but I am more inclined to think people have an even bigger role. There has been suspicion that this particular outbreak in KL might have originated in the smuggling of cockfighting birds from Thailand.

What really struck me about this outbreak was the elderly man – and remember, this guy lives in the city, not some remote kampung – who was quoted in this morning’s The Star newspaper as saying :
“My chickens died and it never occurred to me that they could have been killed by disease. I thought someone was poisoning them.”
The first of his birds died back in January…

Even with all the publicity given to bird flu, still the message doesn’t get through. Still people (not, of course, necessarily the gentleman just quoted) think it’s all right to smuggle in birds from another country where people have died. I am reminded of the Nipah virus in pigs, where exactly the same thing happened and people died in Malacca as a result of the illegal movement of diseased animals.

The problem is not birds; it’s people.