Burmese Migrant Workers Key to Fighting Bird Flu

By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKER / IPS WRITER

BANGKOK — Thailand's plans to contain the spread of the deadly avian influenza virus must involve the tens of thousands of Burmese migrant workers employed in this country's poultry industry, say experts.

"They form the frontline of Thailand's defense against the spread of bird flu,'' Jasper Gross, research officer for the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF), told IPS. "The industry has to protect these migrant workers, give them proper information, equipment and provide a reporting mechanism.''

The call for such a program comes in the wake of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) attempting to drum up attention to help poultry workers and farmers in small and medium-sized chicken farms across South-east Asia. The Geneva-based body is pushing for workers to take on a greater role in detecting and stopping the spread of the deadly H5N1 virus.

"If these workers are properly trained, they can help reduce risk of avian influenza spreading,'' says Tsuyoshi Kawakami, senior specialist on occupational health and safety at the ILO's regional office in Bangkok. "Workers have expressed some anxiety about how they will be affected. Slaughterhouse workers, meat-processing workers are worried.''

"We cannot discriminate against migrant workers,'' he told IPS on the sidelines of a meeting held here to share progress of the ILO's work in Thailand since 2007 and at raising awareness on responding to avian influenza (AI) in the workplace and a possible human pandemic.

Labor rights activists reveal that the information available for Burmese migrant workers to cope with and respond to bird flu is limited to some material produced in Burma. What is missing, they say, are translations of information with Thai-specific situations that are available to Thai workers who handle poultry in the industry.

Currently, migrant workers from Burma make up the largest chunk of the estimated 100,000 people employed in factories across central Thailand and in areas around the capital Bangkok. The Burmese workers, along with those from Cambodia, account for up to 80 percent of the labor force in commercial food factories.

In some of the smaller factories, a few hundred Burmese workers dot the assembly line, performing monotonous tasks such as handling freshly killed chicken. In the larger ones, up to 8,000 workers may make up the labor force.

Thailand's poultry sector is steadily regaining its health after taking a beating following the current outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus, which began in January 2004, affecting many countries in South-east Asia.

Before the current outbreak, the country was exporting 500,000 tonnes of cooked and raw chicken, earning US $1.2 million annually. The outbreak of avian influenza (AI), which resulted in millions of chickens culled and dying due to the virus, saw exports plummet to 27,000 tonnes.

Presently the Thai industry exports 400,000 tonnes of cooked chicken, accounting for one percent of the gross domestic product, according to the department of livestock development.

Burmese migrants working in the poultry sector are among the nearly two million registered and unregistered migrant workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia who work in Thailand. They labor in the food processing industry, in the agriculture, garments and construction sectors and are also employed as domestic workers.

Set against this lapse, however, is Thailand's impressive record in containing the spread of the deadly virus through a range of public and private-sector initiatives.

Consequently, the country has not recorded human cases over the past two years. Between January 2004 and August 2006 there were 25 reported human cases of AI, resulting in 17 deaths.

An army of village health volunteers—now running into 800,000 people—has been a key factor in the country's containment drive.

"We have established a rapid disease reporting system using health volunteers and the 1,030-strong surveillance and rapid response teams,'' says Darika Kingnate, deputy director of the emerging infectious disease control department at the public health ministry.

Such efforts are being praised by the UN arm created in response to the poultry virus that is threatening to become a pandemic, by acquiring the capability of being passed among humans, which could result in the deaths of millions of people across the globe.

"Thailand is the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that has preventive activity in all its 76 provinces,'' says Koji Nabe, avian and human influenza regional officer of the United Nations Systems Influenza Coordinator.

"Actions have to take place at local levels. We cannot expect help from outside if a pandemic happens,'' he adds. "Individuals should know how to take care of themselves.''

Thailand's regional neighbour Vietnam has also benefited from a network of community groups to deal with the spread of the H5N1 virus, largely spread by ducks, in the Mekong Delta. Vietnam, which has recorded 52 human fatalities of 108 confirmed cases, had to deal with 34 reports of AI in poultry last year.

"We succeeded in eliminating the spread of avian influenza through awareness campaigns involving farmers in the Delta who are largely poor,'' Hanh Tran Thi, head of research at the Can Tho Medical College, told IPS. ‘'We used the Self-control Groups in each village in the Delta to get this message out.''

The ILO's drive to target poultry workers in the region comes at a time when countries from China to India are grappling with more reported cases of bird flu. The worst affected country in the region is Indonesia, which accounts for 113 fatalities of the 247 people who have died from AI since the beginning of 2004.