Thai health officials said on Thursday that at least 13 more patients have been added to a watchlist after falling sick with bird-flu-like symptoms. These are additional suspected cases to another 16 people who have been under a close health monitoring.

Pipat Yingseri, an official inspector of the Ministry of PublicHealth, was quoted by the Thai News Agency as saying that the 29 suspect people are waiting for their test results, adding that at least 27 of the suspected cases were from the bird-flu stricken province of Prachinburi, eastern Thailand.

Doctor Pipat said the government has monitored the second bird-flu outbreak from July until the middle of this month. During the monitoring period, only one patient had been confirmed to have died of bird-flu virus.

Prachinburi has been under a close surveillance after a man died after contracting H5N1, the lethal avian flu virus, from his fighting cocks last week.

He became the ninth who died of bird-flu in the kingdom.

The bird-flu outbreak hit Thailand's poultry early this year, and killed eight people nationwide before it was contained.

However, the country has recently faced a second wave of the avian flu.

In the meantime, the Thai government has decided to ban the vaccination in all kind of birds except among the country's endangered species, rare wild birds and fighting cocks on Wednesday.

Source: Xinhua