Japan confirmed a new outbreak of bird flu on Tuesday, thwarting its plans to declare an end to the scourge there, while China confirmed two more outbreaks among poultry in a central province.
The cases came a day after hard-hit Thailand's hopes of declaring victory in its war against the disease were dashed after it reported fresh outbreaks of the virulent H5N1 strain in nine provinces.
"This thing is still not under control," Hans Wagner, a senior official with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told Reuters in Bangkok.
"We have outbreaks in new geographical regions and recurring outbreaks where we had bird flu already. You can't expect to clear it up with one go."
In Japan, an Agriculture Ministry official said the fresh outbreak was reported at the southern end of the main island of Honshu, just a day before Japan expected to declare its sole outbreak of the virus over.
There was no immediate word on whether the deaths of seven chickens were, like the first outbreak, caused by the H5N1 virus that has killed at least 20 people in Thailand and Vietnam, the official said.
China confirmed on Tuesday two outbreaks of the H5N1 strain among poultry in central Hunan province. Fifteen of China's 31 provinces and major cities have confirmed outbreaks of the avian influenza.
Officials had said Japan was set to declare on Wednesday an end to its one confirmed outbreak of bird flu on a farm at the southern end of the main island of Honshu, if there were no new cases.
Thailand had been similarly hopeful, saying it could declare victory by the end of this month over a virus that has led to the slaughter of 80 million poultry in eight countries afflicted by H5N1, which can leap between species.
But on Monday, it said the virus had been found in fighting cocks in areas of eight provinces where mass slaughters were carried out and in ducks in one not struck by the first wave of infections.
The infected fighting cocks - valuable birds hidden or moved around by owners to avoid the cullers - were found in former "red zones" where the government had ordered the slaughter of poultry within a five-km (three-mile) radius of an outbreak.
Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob appealed to owners of fighting cocks - which can sell for up to $12,000 but are worth just $1 in compensation if culled - to hand them over and to neighbours to turn them in if they didn't.
"If people wake up in the morning and find fighting cocks in the backyard of their neighbour, ones that were not there before, they should report them to the authorities," he said.
Thailand has banned the sport, popular across much of Southeast Asia, until the epidemic ravaging its $1 billion chicken export industry is over.
But in Vietnam, which, like Thailand, has culled around 30 million poultry, cock fights were held openly in downtown Hanoi parks at the weekend, even though authorities had ordered all poultry in the capital killed.
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