Thai govt suspected bird flu weeks ago

Thailand’s prime minister admitted today that his government suspected “a couple of weeks” ago that bird flu had hit its billion-dollar poultry industry, but did not tell the public in order to avoid panic.

“We have suspected this for about a couple of weeks,” Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters during a visit to Suphanburi, the province where the virus has hit hardest and where scores of now ruined farmers charge that the government had ignored their pleas for help when the disease first arrived from other parts of Asia.