Recent human deaths from bird flu in East Asia have brought a warning that a pandemic – a widespread or global epidemic – of the disease may be looming. At the least, it could mean catastrophe for producers of domestic fowls who would have to destroy their flocks to stem a spread of the disease.

In the most recent human death, an 18-year-old man in Thailand, who raised fighting cocks, fell ill in early September. He was diagnosed as a victim of the H5N1 bird-flu virus and died within a few days.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland, reports a total of 32 recent laboratory-confirmed human cases of bird-flu in the Far East, of which 22 have died. In a bulletin last March, the agency warned that the virus, usually confined to domestic and migratory birds, could mutate into a dangerous human pathogen. “This is a serious human threat,” said WHO Secretary-General Dr. Lee Jong-Wook. But he held out the possibility that the threat could be controlled before it reached global proportions.

Human cases of the disease have been reported only in Vietnam and Thailand. Most of the human cases have been traced to contact with sick or dead birds. No human-to-human transmission of the disease has been detected, but it has not been ruled out. Widespread incidence in bird populations has occurred since last December in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

“The real issue now is to avoid the emergence of a pandemic, and that means to eliminate the animal reservoir. And that should be done in a safe way so that persons are not going to be exposed to the virus without being protected,” said Klaus Stohr, who heads the WHO project on the bird-flu outbreak. A dozen pharmaceutical companies are working to develop a vaccine for the virus. Diagnostic tests and expensive anti-viral medicines are already available. First human symptoms of the disease are fever, sore throat and cough. It can quickly attack the kidneys, liver and heart.

Many influenza experts agree that the prompt destruction of Hong Kong’s entire poultry population in 1997 – about 1.5 million birds – probably averted a pandemic. Some say earlier reporting of human cases and drastic culling of flocks of domestic fowls could have controlled the recent human outbreaks.

Maine authorities ordered the slaughter of domestic ducks in Warren in the early 1990s as a precautionary measure. An avian-flu virus had spread from wild ducks to domestic ducks but was eradicated before it reached other domestic fowls.