Asia’s bird flu epidemic, which experts fear could spawn a human pandemic, has claimed its 31st victim, a nine-year-old Thai girl who had contact with infected chickens at home.

She died on Sunday night, soon after being confirmed as having the H5N1 bird flu virus nearly a month after falling ill, Health Ministry spokeswoman Nitaya Chanruang Mahabhol told AMN.

“The girl was in poor condition before being sent to the hospital,” Nitaya said on Monday of the 11th Thai to die of bird flu since the virus swept through much of Asia early this year. It has also killed 20 Vietnamese.

The government, spurred into a frenzy of action by Thailand’s first probable human-to-human transmission of the virus last week, is determined no one else will linger untested and untreated for so long.

Volunteers would inspect every village in the country and put anyone showing flu-like symptoms on the government’s bird flu watch list, Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan told reporters.

So far, 85 patients in 22 of Thailand’s 76 provinces are waiting for H5N1 test results after being sent to hospital with flu-like symptoms, a ministry statement said.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra gave his government until the end of October to eliminate the virus, promising heads would roll if the drive failed.

Experts say that task is nearly impossible given the resilience of a virus that has survived the slaughter of tens of millions of poultry.

What they fear most is that the H5N1 virus could infect an animal also able to host a human flu virus - most likely a pig - and then mutate and start a pandemic in a human population with no resistance to the mutated virus.

In 1918, just such a pandemic killed an estimated 20 million people around the world.

RISK RISING

No evidence has yet emerged of such a development, although experts are now sure that the H5N1 virus can be passed from human to human if there is prolonged and very close contact.

Last week, it killed a Thai woman whose daughter died in her arms, coughing blood.

Dutch researchers reported last month that domestic cats can get the avian influenza virus, which means pets are at risk of catching and spreading the disease.

However, a report that a Thai dog had also caught it proved to be an error probably caused by a mislabeled sample, the Health Ministry said.

For a few months it looked as if the virus was being defeated, but it sprang up again in Thailand and Vietnam in July, China has had one new case, Indonesia several and Malaysia confirmed its presence for the first time.

Migratory wildfowl, which can carry bird flu viruses without falling ill, are thought to have brought the H5N1 variety to Asia during the last northern winter. Thaksin’s end of October target for eliminating it marks the start of this year’s migrations.

However, the first main target in Thailand’s intensified campaign to eliminate the virus is the large flocks of ducks moved from place to place and which, like their wild brethren, can spread it without falling ill.

“We will start buying all nomadic ducks right away and we will kill infected ones,” Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisang told reporters, saying he would seek a $120 million budget for such additional preventive measures.

“We are doing this because we have detected H5N1 in many nomadic ducks,” he said.

The government was also trying to figure out ways to stop village people raising free-range chickens that wander and defecate at will, spreading the virus if they have it, said Chaturon, who is in charge of eliminating bird flu.

“We might need to come up with some sort of incentives or subsidies,” he said.