03/19 | Daily Bird Flu Thread: 40% of poultry sector in danger of closing

Link to yesterday's thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=190193

Since January, 2004 WHO has reported human cases of avian influenza A (H5N1) in the following countries:

* East Asia and the Pacific:
o Cambodia
o China
o Indonesia
o Thailand
o Vietnam

* Europe & Eurasia:
o Turkey

* Near East:
o Iraq

For additional information about these reports, visit the
World Health Organization Web Site.

Updated February 8, 2006

Since December 2003, avian influenza A (H5N1) infections in poultry or wild birds have been reported in the following countries:

* Africa:
o Cameroon
o Niger
o Nigeria

* East Asia & the Pacific:
o Cambodia
o China
o Hong Kong (SARPRC)
o Indonesia
o Japan
o Laos
o Malaysia
o Mongolia
o Myanmar (Burma)
o Thailand
o Vietnam

* Europe & Eurasia:
o Albania
o Austria
o Azerbaijan
o Bosnia & Herzegovina (H5)
o Bulgaria
o Croatia
o France
o Georgia (H5)
o Germany
o Greece
o Hungary
o Italy
o Poland
o Romania
o Russia
o Serbia and Montenegro (H5)
o Slovak Republic
o Slovenia
o Sweden
o Switzerland
o Turkey
o Ukraine

* Near East:
o Egypt
o Iraq (H5)
o Iran

* South Asia:
o India
o Kazakhstan
o Pakistan (H5)


For additional information about these reports, visit the
World Organization for Animal Health Web Site.

Updated March 17, 2006

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/outbreaks/current.htm#animals

WHO, Avian Flu Timeline in .pdf: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/timeline.pdf

Israel

Last update - 03:19 19/03/2006

40% of poultry sector in danger of closing​

By Amiram Cohen

More than 40 percent of the businesses in the poultry, egg and meat sectors are in danger of going out of business as a result of the expected drop in sales because of the avian flu, according to estimates made by economists at Dun and Bradstreet.

Those in danger of bankruptcy include farmers, slaughterhouses, meat processing plants, hatcheries and food companies - including those that use eggs for bakery products. This means an almost doubling of the potential number of businesses likely to go under - which Dun and Bradstreet said stood at only 24 percent before the avian influenza struck Israel.

Demand for chicken and turkey products was down already last weekend in supermarkets, but poultry sales dropped in particular in the outdoor markets. Stall owners in Tel Aviv's Carmel market reported a 50 percent drop in sales on Friday. In a more upscale neighborhood supermarket in Tel Aviv the manager refused to supply figures relating to poultry sales, but it was clear there were very few customers in the fresh poultry department - much fewer than usual. There was almost no demand at all for fresh poultry, and frozen bird sales were way down.

The drop in sales came despite repeated statements from the health and agriculture ministries that there was no reason not to eat poultry or eggs that had been cooked properly. Ministry officials were worried the drop in demand would only get worse as more cases of avian flu were reported.

According to figures from the Israel Farmers Organization, sales of poultry for consumption are NIS 1.7 billion a year, egg sales are NIS 0.5 billion and turkey sales are also NIS 0.5 billion. The turnover of the market for raising poultry - chicks and eggs sold to farmers - is NIS 400 million a year. Altogether the poultry business for farmers is worth NIS 2.7 billion a year.

The value of poultry - chicken and turkey meat - sales to consumers is NIS 4.2 billion a year, according to Dun and Bradstreet. Fresh birds represent 80 percent of these sales, with the remaining being frozen and processed meat.

Among those facing the threat of financial ruin are 600 farmers who raise poultry for meat, another 1,000 who raise egg-laying hens - most of whom are located in moshavim in the Galilee and the Jerusalem Corridor - and another 80-90 turkey farmers - mostly kibbutzim.

In addition the poultry sector includes hundreds of other businesses, such as slaughterhouses, hatcheries, suppliers of agricultural supplies; along with various wholesalers and retailers, as well as truckers - and many more.

The moshav movement estimates that about 10,000 families make their living from the poultry business.

Yesterday the veterinary services of the Agriculture Ministry started destroying birds on those farms that have been infected, and today all poultry within a three-kilometer radius of those infected will be killed. The number of birds to be destroyed was estimated in the hundreds of thousands by the ministry. The large majority of the birds to be killed are completely healthy, but will destroyed due to their proximity to the infected areas.

Compensation

The law pertaining to the destruction requires the state to compensate the owners of the poultry farms. The law requires compensation for birds that are sick as well as healthy ones - in order to protect public health. The statute further determines the state must pay the farmer only half the value of birds that died from the disease or are sick; but farmers must be compensated for the full value of healthy birds destroyed only because they are suspected of being sick or mgiht possibly spread the disease.

The payment includes the price the farmer would receive - not the consumer price.

Today a farmer gets about NIS 4 per kilo for turkeys and NIS 7 per kilo for live chickens. This works out to an average of NIS 60 per turkey and NIS 15 per chicken.

The total to be paid out - based on a estimate of 200,000 birds affected is in the NIS 8-10 million range. The amounts do not include the expenses that will be require to restart production: sterilization, cleaning and new infrastructure.

The amounts include only those areas that have already been declared as infected. If the disease spreads, then the amounts will certainly rise by many more millions.

But the main damage to the poultry sector in the long run will not come from the destruction of the birds, but from an expected decline in demand for the products as consumers turn away from meat and eggs.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/695627.html

Black Market Chicken

Chicken curry goes underground as Myanmar battles bird flu​

(AFP)

19 March 2006

MANDALAY, Myanmar - Myanmar’s first bird flu outbreak has swept chickens from markets in this central city but in a country with a thriving black market, many know how to get their hands on illicit poultry.

While many shoppers and diners said they had been scared off eating chicken, others were undeterred by a ban on the sale and transport of poultry and eggs.

“I’m afraid of bird flu. I’ve removed chicken curry from our menu because I don’t want my customers to get sick,” said the owner of a popular restaurant in Mandalay, 700 kilometres (450 miles) north of Yangon.

“Even if we serve chicken curry, nobody will eat it. Also we have not been able to buy chickens since the outbreak,” said the 40-year-old owner who declined to be named.

A waitress at another restaurant said her eatery and several others in Mandalay were buying chickens illegally to meet customer demand.

“We have to find ways to buy chickens. We still serve chicken curry because of demand from customers,” she said on condition she not be identified.

Myanmar, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, reported the virus in chickens in Mandalay a week ago and immediately banned all trade in chicken, ducks and eggs here.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Authority has said that tests on samples of dead chickens from Myanmar confirmed the lethal H5N1 strain of the virus, which has killed about 100 people, mostly in Asia, since 2003.

Mya Mya, 40, a vegetable vendor, said she was not upset by the sudden disappearance of poultry from the city’s menus and market stalls.

“Why should we continue to eat chicken? I’ve learned that bird flu can kill people. Even without chicken, our country has many things to eat,” she said.

“Chicken and egg sellers are not allowed to sell their products at our market. That is a good way to prevent this disease.”

In Yangon, chickens were still being sold in markets but shoppers said prices, which used to be prohibitive for ordinary people had dropped by nearly 30 percent since bird flu erupted.

Even though international health experts say properly cooked poultry and eggs were safe, many people were opting for alternative foods.

“Chicken sellers are just sitting beside their trays full of chickens,” said a woman at a market. “The price of chicken has fallen sharply and poor people are now buying it, saying they can afford to eat chicken. I feel sorry for them.”

While the world learned about Myanmar’s outbreak Monday, its notoriously secretive military rulers maintained a news blackout inside the country until Thursday.

The government, which has been controlled by the military since 1962, once dismissed concerns that bird flu could break out in Myanmar, saying the country’s mountainous borders were protection against the virus.

Now state television and radio broadcast daily bulletins about the disease, explaining that H5N1 might have been brought here by migratory birds or through illegal chicken imports.

Aung Tun, 51, a Yangon taxi driver, said he was aware of the outbreak in Mandalay but was not giving up chicken, especially local delicacies such as chicken liver, kidneys and intestines.

“I heard about the bird flu outbreak on the news, but I still eat chicken because I cook it well-done. Our people in Myanmar cook all meat well-done. So I don’t need to worry about it,” he said.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Display.../March/theworld_March526.xml&section=theworld

Myanmar, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, reported the virus in chickens in Mandalay a week ago and immediately banned all trade in chicken, ducks and eggs here.

Click to expand...

This is a little thought out, knee jerk government response to an Avian Flu outbreak that we can probably expect either OUR Federal or State governments to suddenly issue.

WHO widens work on avian and pandemic influenza preparedness​

to reach displaced populations and local communities​

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2006/np07/en/index.html

17 MARCH 2006 | GENEVA -- This week, the World Health Organization (WHO) organized two technical meetings on preparedness for the impact of pandemic influenza on refugee and displaced populations, and on social mobilization to reduce the risks of avian influenza.

Pandemic influenza preparedness and mitigation in refugee and displaced populations

WHO met with humanitarian agency partners including other UN agencies, international organizations and NGOs to finalize guidelines for pandemic influenza preparedness among refugee and displaced populations. The meeting of technical experts from NGOs, other UN organizations and donor agencies addressed key issues surrounding detection, response, containment, and impact mitigation in the event of an influenza pandemic. Overcrowding, high rates of malnutrition and poor access to healthcare and public health services are likely to dramatically increase rates of death and disease in the event of an influenza pandemic.

New guidelines, entitled "Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Mitigation in Refugee and Displaced Populations - WHO Guidelines for Humanitarian Agencies," are being finalized for publication in late March. Participants discussed critical issues facing humanitarian agencies, particularly early warning surveillance, risk communication, protection of staff, infection control, clinical management and stockpiling.

Following the release of these guidelines, WHO will continue to provide technical support to humanitarian agencies as preparedness activities are strengthened at the field level.

Social mobilization

WHO, together with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and UNICEF, met to identify ways to better support Member States and affected populations in developing clear public health communication to reduce the spread of avian influenza in animals and protect the human population from infection.

The participants from the three UN agencies examined the most important behaviours needed to reduce risks of transmission and the impact on individuals, communities and groups such as poultry producers, and how best to disseminate the messages through national and local organizations. The meeting identified a set of behavioural interventions to contribute to reducing the risk of AI

Published: March 18, 2006 11:57 pm

Red Cross wants public to be prepared​

By Georgia E. Frye / staff writer
The Meridian Star
MERIDIAN —

Cheri Barry, executive director of the Key Chapter of the American Red Cross, said that while people should not panic about the potential spread of bird flu, they should be prepared to protect themselves if the flu becomes a pandemic.

Barry said that while no human-to-human cases of the avian influenza have been reported, there is a growing concern that the flu could mutate and spread rapidly from person to person. For now, Barry said, those at risk of infection are those who handle poultry.

“There’s no certainty if or when a pandemic might occur, but we should take it seriously and build our capacity to be prepared,” Barry said.

Barry said bird flu was first detected in Asia in 1997. Since then, 16 countries have seen an outbreak of bird flu, and more than 200 million birds have been affected. She said there have been 176 human cases of bird flu and 97 deaths worldwide.

“Everything is an assumption at this point, but if it mutates and infects humans, it will spread rapidly,” Barry said.

Symptoms of bird flu are similar to those of the seasonal flu, but she said the Red Cross is working to make people aware. The Key Chapter will hold classes to inform the community of ways to prevent getting the flu and what to do if bird flu comes to Lauderdale and surrounding counties.

“Ten percent of people infected will not know they have the virus, so they would be out in the community infecting others,” she said. “We just don’t know anything about the survival rate, and there is not yet a vaccine.”

Barry said the virus usually affects a young age group because those are the ones who are working with poultry.

Dr. Jim Watson, state veterinarian, said people should use good hygiene when preparing poultry.

“We are asking people to use common sense when handling poultry,” he said, adding the state is working on a plan of action in the case bird flu is detected in Mississippi.

Barry said people should prepare by making sure they have a gallon of water for each person in a household, extra medications, canned food and enough supplies to last from four days to four weeks.

She said the American Red Cross would be in charge of feeding those who may be quarantined after becoming infected with the flu.

“We will take care of the immediate needs of those who have been infected,” she said. “We continue to need volunteers because if this hits, the hospitals will be full and people will have to be prepared to stay in their homes.”

http://www.meridianstar.com/local/local_story_077235717.html

Egypt reports second suspected human case of bird flu

www.chinaview.cn 2006-03-19 20:16:04

CAIRO, March 19 (Xinhua) -- An Egyptian man had been suspected of being infected by the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, the second human infection reported in the populous north African country in two days, the Egyptian official MENA news agency reported on Sunday.
Egyptian Minister of Health and Population Hatem el-Gabali announced the appearance of a second suspected human case of bird flu in the governorate of Qalyubiya, some 40 km north of Cairo,said MENA.

The young man, however, had recovered from the disease,according to the report.

A 30-year-old woman from Qalyubiya died early Friday morning ina Cairo hospital where she had been treated for flu-like symptoms,the Health Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Medical experts had detected the H5N1 bird flu virus in her blood samples, said the ministry, adding that more samples of the woman had been sent to Britain for further tests.

Egypt reported its first case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu among wild birds and poultry on Feb. 17 and the government has since launched an aggressive campaign to bring the spread of the disease under control.

[snip]

from www.chron.com

March 19, 2006, 1:41AM
Blame Big Chicken Farms for Bird Flu Threat
Lethal virus is a product of the industrial poultry trade

By WENDY ORENT


Chicken has never been cheaper. A whole one can be bought for little more than the price of a cup of coffee from Starbucks. But the industrial farming methods that make ever-cheaper chicken possible may also have created the lethal strain of bird flu virus, H5N1, that threatens to set off a global pandemic.

According to Earl Brown, a University of Ottawa flu virologist, lethal bird flu is entirely man-made, first evolving in commercially produced poultry in Italy in 1878. The highly pathogenic H5N1 is descended from a strain that first appeared in Scotland in 1959.

People have been living with backyard flocks of poultry since the dawn of civilization. But it wasn't until poultry production became modernized, and birds were raised in much larger numbers and concentrations, that a virulent bird flu evolved. When birds are packed close together, any brakes on virulence are off. Birds struck with a fatal illness can easily pass the disease to others, through direct contact or through fecal matter, and lethal strains can evolve. Somehow, the virus that arose in Scotland found its way to China, where, as H5N1, it has been raging for more than a decade.

Industrial poultry-raising moved from the West to Asia in the past few decades and has begun to supplant backyard flocks there. According to a recent report by Grain, an international nongovernmental organization, chicken production in Southeast Asia has jumped eightfold in 30 years to about 2.7 million tons. The Chinese annually produce about 10 million tons of chickens. Some of China's factory farms raise 5 million birds at a time. Charoen Pokphand Group, a huge Thai enterprise that owns a large chunk of poultry production throughout Thailand and China as well as in Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Turkey, exported about 270 million chickens in 2003 alone.

Since then, the C.P. Group, which styles itself as the "Kitchen of the World," has suffered enormous losses from bird flu. According to bird-flu expert Gary Butcher of the University of Florida, the company has made a conscientious effort to clean up. But the damage has been done.

Virulent bird flu has left the factories and moved into the farmyards of the poor, where it has had devastating effects. Poultry may represent a family's greatest wealth. The birds often are not eaten until they die of old age or illness. The cost of the virus to people who have raised birds for months or years is incalculable and the compensation risible: In Thailand, farmers have been offered one-third of their birds' value since the outbreak of bird flu.

Sometimes farmers who don't want to lose their investments illicitly trade their birds across borders. In Nigeria, virus-infected chickens threatened with culling are sold by the poor to even poorer people, who see nothing unusual in eating a sick bird. So the birds — and the bird flu virus — slip away to other villages and other countries.

The Southeast Asian country without rampant bird flu is Laos, where 90 percent of poultry production is still in peasant hands, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About 45 small outbreaks in or near commercial farms from January to March 2004 were quickly stamped out by culling birds from contaminated farms.

Some researchers still blame migratory birds for the relentless spread of the bird flu virus. But Martin Williams, a conservationist and bird expert in Hong Kong, contends that wild birds are more often victims than carriers. Last spring, for instance, about 5,000 wild birds died at Qinghai Lake in western China, probably from exposure to disease at commercial poultry farms in the region, according to Grain. The virus now in Turkey and Nigeria is essentially identical to the Qinghai strain.

Richard Thomas of Birdlife International, a global alliance of conservation organizations, and others dispute the idea that wild birds carried the flu virus from Qinghai to Russia and beyond. They point out that the disease spread from Qinghai to southern Siberia during the summer months when birds do not migrate, and that it moved east to west along railway lines, roads and international boundaries — not along migratory flyways.
What evidence there is for migratory birds as H5N1 carriers is contained in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers examined 13,115 wild birds and found asymptomatic bird flu in six ducks from China. Analysis showed that these ducks had been exposed earlier to less virulent strains of H5 and thus were partly immunized before they were infected with H5N1. On this slender basis, coupled with the fact that some domestic ducks infected for experimental purposes don't get sick, the study's authors contend that the findings "demonstrate that H5N1 viruses can be transmitted over long distances by migratory birds."

Even so, the researchers conceded that the global poultry trade, much of which is illicit, plays a far larger role in spreading the virus. The Nigerian government traced its outbreak to the illegal importation of day-old chicks. Illegal trading in fighting cocks brought the virus from Thailand to Malaysia in fall 2005. And it is probable that H5N1 first spread from Qinghai to Russia and Kazakhstan last summer through the sale of contaminated poultry.

But an increasingly hysterical world targets migratory birds. In early February, a flock of geese, too cold and tired to fly, rested on the frozen waters of the Danube Delta in Romania. A group of 15 men set upon them, tossed some into the air, tore off others' heads and used still-living birds as soccer balls. They said they did this because they feared the bird flu would enter their village through the geese. Many conservationists worry that what happened in Romania is a foreshadowing of the mass destruction of wild birds.

Meanwhile, deadly H5N1 is washing up on the shores of Europe. Brown says the commercial poultry industry, which caused the catastrophe in the first place, stands to benefit most. The conglomerates will more and more dominate the poultry-rearing business. Some experts insist that will be better for us. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota, for instance, contends that the "single greatest risk to the amplification of the H5N1 virus, should it arrive in the United States through migratory birds, will be in free-range birds ... often sold as a healthier food, which is a great ruse on the American public."

The truly great ruse is that industrial poultry farms are the best way to produce chickens — that Perdue Farms and Tyson Foods and Charoen Pokphand are keeping the world safe from backyard poultry and migratory birds. But what's going to be on our tables isn't the biggest problem. The real tragedy is what's happened in Asia to people who can't afford cheap, industrial chicken. And the real victims of industrially produced, lethal H5N1 have been wild birds, an ancient way of life and the poor of the Earth, for whom a backyard flock has always represented a measure of autonomy and a bulwark against starvation.

Orent is the author of "Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease." This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

Nuthatch....that is a very interesting article!

Culling over, India monitors doctor for bird flu​

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL233738.htm

MUMBAI, March 19 (Reuters) - A doctor with fever and respiratory problems was under observation in western India where tens of thousands of birds were culled to contain a second outbreak of avian flu, officials said on Sunday.

The latest outbreak -- in backyard poultry in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra state-- was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu, but it has not infected people so far.

However, late on Saturday, a doctor walked into a local hospital and asked to be put under observation, joining a 11-year-old boy with high fever and a history of exposure to dead birds.

"The doctor is not from the affected region and neither was he exposed to dead birds, but we didn't want to take a chance," T.P. Doke, Maharashtra's health director, told Reuters.

Blood samples of the two had been sent for testing. The boy was being given Tamiflu, the drug that fights bird flu in humans.

Health officials were monitoring 65,000 people spread over 17 villages. Of them, some 150 people had fever, but authorities said the figure was normal.

"Moreover, these people aren't showing flu-like symptoms, just normal fever," said Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra's most senior health official.

Blood samples of about 90 people from Jalgaon had been sent for testing, but officials said that was purely out of "academic curiosity".

Veterinary officials said they had finished culling all chickens -- numbering more than 75,000 -- in four villages spread over 1,100 square km (425 square miles) in Jalgaon district identified as affected by the outbreak.

Samples from unaffected poultry elsewhere in Maharashtra were being collected to ensure bird flu had not spread beyond Jalgaon.

Jalgaon is 200 km (125 miles) from Navapur, where India reported its first case of the H5N1 strain in poultry last month.

After the first outbreak, India tested more than 100 people for bird flu but all proved negative.

Indian authorities said last week they had contained the virus after culling hundreds of thousands of chickens in Navapur town and neighbouring areas, but within days the second outbreak was reported from Jalgaon.

Tamiflu given to 11-year-old boy
Ketan Vaidya
Sunday, March 19, 2006 (Jalgaon):

An 11-year-old boy in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra is being given Tamiflu the only drug known to be effective against the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Doctors in the hospital, where the boy has been kept in isolation, say that his blood samples have been sent for testing and the results are expected in four days' time.

He was being given Tamiflu as a precautionary measure when it was found that he had handled a lot of dead poultry over the last one week.

The boy's fever, which developed on Friday, did not come down with paracetamol and his temperature shot up to 103 on Saturday night.

Apart from this 11-year-old boy, 93 other human samples have been sent for testing to the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in New Delhi and the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune.

Meanwhile, a team from NIV has checked at least 65,000 people [!] in areas near the four villages of Hated, Sawada, Salve and Marul, where four bird samples tested positive.

http://www.ndtv.com/template/templa...=85920&callid=1

Culling over, govt monitors doctor for bird flu
http://in.today.reuters.com/misc/Pr...ia-241266-1.xml
Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:11 PM IST

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A doctor with fever and respiratory problems was under observation in Maharashtra where tens of thousands of birds were culled to contain a second outbreak of avian flu, officials said on Sunday.

The latest outbreak -- in backyard poultry in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra -- was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu, but it has not infected people so far.

However, late on Saturday, a doctor walked into a local hospital and asked to be put under observation, joining a 11-year-old boy with high fever and a history of exposure to dead birds.

"The doctor is not from the affected region and neither was he exposed to dead birds, but we didn't want to take a chance," T.P. Doke, Maharashtra's health director, told Reuters.

Blood samples of the two had been sent for testing. The boy was being given Tamiflu, the drug that fights bird flu in humans.

Health officials were monitoring 65,000 people spread over 17 villages. Of them, some 150 people had fever, but authorities said the figure was normal.

"Moreover, these people aren't showing flu-like symptoms, just normal fever," said Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra's most senior health official.

Blood samples of about 90 people from Jalgaon had been sent for testing, but officials said that was purely out of "academic curiosity".

Veterinary officials said they had finished culling all chickens -- numbering more than 75,000 -- in four villages spread over 1,100 square km in Jalgaon district identified as affected by the outbreak.

Samples from unaffected poultry elsewhere in Maharashtra were being collected to ensure bird flu had not spread beyond Jalgaon.

Jalgaon is 200 km from Navapur, where India reported its first case of the H5N1 strain in poultry last month.

After the first outbreak, India tested more than 100 people for bird flu but all proved negative.

Indian authorities said last week they had contained the virus after culling hundreds of thousands of chickens in Navapur town and neighbouring areas, but within days the second outbreak was reported from Jalgaon.

Nuthatch said:

According to Earl Brown, a University of Ottawa flu virologist, lethal bird flu is entirely man-made, first evolving in commercially produced poultry in Italy in 1878.

Click to expand...

Interesting article Nuthatch... over the past couple of weeks, there have been other articles like this in the daily BF. Thanks for the reminder... This whole factory livestock thing is just not right... I wish the BF woud be a 'wake-up call' but I fear it will got the other way and we might see 'free range' chicken outlawed.

Oops! Sorry for the dupe above. Must have forgotten to refresh before posting.

Great! Now there's a possibility it could infect the fish? Apparently it's a slight possibility, but just one more thing to keep an eye on.


http://www.ami-tass.ru/article/6330.html

Machine Translation:

Bird influenza can strike fishes, the German veterinary surgeons reported
18.03.2006 | 12:56
Version for the press
BERLIN. /Igor Day/. The virus of the "bird influenza" Of eychshchEny under specific conditions dangerous for the man can infect fishes in the reservoirs, in which live sick birds. The German veterinary institute im. Friedrich Loeffler reported on this, which specializes in the development of means of protection from the fatal virus.
However, this possibility "is very small". "the probability of infecting the fishes through the dung of sick birds exists, however, it is not very essential ", - said the director of institute Thomas Mettenlayter in the interview, published in the newspaper "ruhr of nakhrikhten". Because of the difference of temperatures of the body of fishes and birds to virus it will be extremely complicatedly adapted to the new living environment, scientist assumes. "in this connection use into the food of fish and sea products does not present danger for the man".

More than 40 percent of the businesses in the poultry, egg and meat sectors are in danger of going out of business as a result of the expected drop in sales because of the avian flu

Gonna be a BUNCH of unemployed illegal Mex's here in the US...

Dennis Olson said:

More than 40 percent of the businesses in the poultry, egg and meat sectors are in danger of going out of business as a result of the expected drop in sales because of the avian flu

Gonna be a BUNCH of unemployed illegal Mex's here in the US...

Click to expand...

Personal edit to prove the danger:

Gonna be a BUNCH of potentially H5N1 infected unemployed illegal Mex's here in the US...

Click to expand...

Goat meat anyone??

Nuthatch that article is an eye opener. This means that our transportation system theoretically could spread the flu faster than migration.

A scarey thought indeed. I hope that the experts here on TB2K and PC Viking and gang keep this up so we can stay on top of this. I shudder to think what will happen to this nation should it go H2H and become a pandemic during this fall.

Officials to give update on U.S. bird flu plans​

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/living/health/14135205.htm

MARGARET TALEV
McClatchy News Service

WASHINGTON - Springtime is here and, with it, fevered chirping about bird flu.

On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton are to present a joint update on national preparedness, covering bird testing, poultry industry protections, anti-smuggling measures, vaccine development and the status of state and local emergency planning.

Leavitt also is in the midst of a multi-city tour, answering questions about the virus' spread globally and telling Americans how to respond should it reach U.S. shores.

He is asking people not to panic -- even if it should reach birds here, that doesn't mean people are at risk -- but to start stockpiling enough nonperishable food, water, flashlights, batteries and medicine to last a couple of weeks, just in case.

A confluence of science and politics are at work:

• The change of seasons each year, from winter to spring, sends wild birds from Asia and the continental United States north to Alaska, where they commingle while they nest and molt.

• The H5N1 avian flu virus has remained resilient as it makes its way around the globe, from Asia into Europe and Africa. It has been mutating.

• The annual appropriations process on Capitol Hill is gearing up. Each spring, federal officials and lobbyists representing various industries begin making their cases to have their priority programs funded by taxpayer dollars. Late last year, President Bush sought $7.1 billion for avian flu preparations. Congress at the time gave him about half, or $3.8 billion.

Test shows Egypt has bird flu death

CAIRO, Egypt -- Initial tests at a U.S. Navy lab show that a 35-year-old woman who died last week in Egypt had bird flu, officials said Saturday. If the results are confirmed, she would be the country's first known human death from the disease.In Israel, vets on Saturday slaughtered thousands of turkeys suspected of having H5N1, and Israel Channel Two TV reported it had been officially confirmed at one of four suspected locations.

Bird Flu Answers

Q. Do I have to worry about catching bird flu, or is the threat of a pandemic overblown?

There has yet to be a reported case of birds, animals or humans with the H5N1 virus in the United States. But the disease has been moving west, from Asia into Europe and Africa, touching at least 43 countries and killing millions of birds since 2003. It appears to be spreading via wild birds as well as poultry. Between this spring and autumn, migratory birds could bring the virus to the United States. In other countries, avian flu has killed some people and pets, but it isn't yet easily transmissible from person to person.

Q. If it hits the United States, how quickly will avian flu spread?

That depends on:

• How the virus mutates between now and then.

• The controls in place in the poultry industry, the public health infrastructure, and airlines and other transit systems.

• How quickly and effectively vaccines and treatments could be produced and distributed.

• Whether uninfected people could sequester themselves from contagious people soon enough, if necessary.

Millions of birds have died, but fewer than 200 human cases have been confirmed.

Q. How do I stay informed about avian flu, and what should I do to prepare?

Visit these Web sites:

• U.S. government has information at http://www.pandemicflu.gov, or call (800) 232-4636.

• The World Health Organization's has information at http://www.who.int/en/

The H5N1 avian flu virus has remained resilient as it makes its way around the globe, from Asia into Europe and Africa. It has been mutating.

Click to expand...

Not good. I'm no scientist, but that's not good at all.

India

2 more isolated with symptoms of avian flu​

Kounteya Sinha
Monday, March 20, 2006 01:06:29 am

NEW DELHI: Two more people - a 40-year-old woman and a five-year-old girl - were isolated with symptoms of bird flu - cough, cold, fever and sore throat in Jalgaon on Sunday. They have been kept in isolation and administered Tamiflu.

The 40-year-old local poultry owner, Sarlo Subhash More, from Takiri Khurd village in Jalgaon, has been hospitalised and kept in isolation after health officials carrying out door-to-door surveillance found her with fever and respiratory problems.

Investigations revealed that she had used bare hands to bury a large number of chickens who died eight days ago.

The five-year-old girl, Tina Deepak Nanavede, from Kochur village was also diagnosed with classic symptoms. Her grandparents told health officials that six chickens had died in their house a week ago and Tina had buried them.

Meanwhile, panic is visible among people in Jalgaon. A 55-year-old doctor from Jalgaon got himself hospitalised after an egg cracked on his hands.

Fearing that the egg could be infected with the bird flu virus, D A Wankhade, who is suffering from Systotic Bronchitis and is also a diabetic, met health officials for a check-up. It was found that he had slight fever. He has now been kept under observation.

Meanwhile, panic has gripped Ramgarh town after a large number of chickens were found dead at Bhurkunda and two dogs reportedly died when they ate the dead chickens.

The district administration on Sunday ordered a probe into the incident, which has left people fearing outbreak of bird flu.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1455932.cms

“We will take care of the immediate needs of those who have been infected,” she said. “We continue to need volunteers because if this hits, the hospitals will be full and people will have to be prepared to stay in their homes.”



Right....how many volunteers are going to step up to the plate? Especially those with children or an ill relative at home? Hunker in the bunker is your best bet.

Taz

CBS NEWS (MSM)

It appears the US-MSM is starting to take notice... still in denial, but taking notice...

'High Chance' Of Bird Flu In Israel​

March 17, 2006(CBS/AP) Tens of thousands of turkeys were ordered destroyed Friday as a protective measure, while officials waited to hear whether Israel has experienced its first outbreak of a deadly bird flu.

About 11,000 turkeys have died in recent days, and after preliminary tests, Health Minister Yaakov Edri said there was a "very high chance that this is avian flu."

"We are already pretty sure it is avian flu, but of course, there are more tests to be done," Edri told Army Radio.

The new cases reflected the disease's persistent global spread since outbreaks in eastern Asia in late 2003, with evidence suggesting it is being carried by migratory birds and officials now confirming the virus in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

An Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman, Dafna Yarisca, told The Associated Press it could take anywhere from hours to days until final results were in.

No cases of human illness have been reported, Edri said. If the H5N1 strain of avian flu is confirmed, and in the unlikely event it spreads to humans, Israel has vaccinations for half a million of its 7 million people, he said.

Israeli media report four people have been hospitalized and are under observation for signs of the flu, but government veterinary officials say it's not likely they actually have bird flu.

In other developments:

# Vietnam has intensified a crackdown on poultry smuggled from China to help prevent bird flu flare-ups, officials said Friday. Agriculture Minister Cao Duc Phat sent a telegram on Thursday ordering all border provinces and relevant ministries to work harder to keep Chinese birds from illegally entering the country.

# Lab tests have confirmed the first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in war-ravaged Afghanistan, the United Nations and the government said Thursday. A joint U.N.-Afghan statement said samples taken from six birds in the capital, Kabul, and the eastern city of Jalalabad tested positive for the virus, raising concern about how the impoverished Central Asian nation's government will deal with an outbreak of the disease.

# In western India, health workers trying to stamp out a second outbreak of bird flu searched through backyards and struggled to convince anxious villagers that their chickens must be slaughtered. India's first outbreak last month of H5N1 bird flu was centered in large poultry farms. But the latest outbreak — reported so far only as an H5 virus, with the H5N1 subtype not yet confirmed — has hit small backyard farms, most with less than 20 chickens. "This time it's more difficult because teams have to find out if there are chickens in people's homes," state animal husbandry official S.M. Ali said.

# Pakistan, which shares borders with all three infected countries but has yet to report a confirmed case of H5N1 bird flu, sent fresh samples of diseased chickens this week to London for testing, government official Muhammad Afzal said Thursday. Last month, authorities sent samples from the same two farms in the country's northwest for tests, but the results were inconclusive.

# Denmark on Thursday became the latest of 19 European countries to report cases of the virus, with its Ministry for Consumer and Family Affairs saying tests showed that a buzzard found southwest of Copenhagen was carrying the disease.

# Bird flu has ravaged poultry populations and also spread to people, killing at least 98 people since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. That tally does not include three human deaths reported this week by the Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan.

Three people admitted to a southern hospital were being observed for signs of bird flu, a spokesman at Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva said, but Israeli veterinary officials said they did not think the patients had contracted the disease.

A fourth person who could have contracted the disease was put in isolation at the Barzilai Hospital, a hospital spokeswoman said. The man worked in the southern town of Sde Moshe, a fourth area where birds are suspected of having contracted the flu, the spokeswoman said.

Health officials fear H5N1 could evolve into a virus that can be transmitted easily between people and become a global pandemic, but there has been no confirmation of this happening yet. At least 97 people have died from the disease worldwide, with most victims infected directly by sick birds.

The suspected outbreak originally was centered on the Negev Desert farming communities of Ein Hashlosha and Holit, but later spread to Nachson, a farming community near Jerusalem, Agriculture Ministry officials said.

Officials imposed quarantines in all three areas, and on Friday, ordered turkey flocks in all three communities destroyed, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Dr. Shimon Perk, head of the Agriculture Ministry's poultry disease department, said he expected 86,000 birds to be destroyed within two to three days.

The Haaretz newspaper reported on its Web site Friday that a fourth flock in Sde Moshe, near the southern town of Kiryat Gat, was also under observation.

Four million units of flu vaccine for birds were ordered protectively from Holland, Agriculture Minister Zeev Boim told Israel Radio.

Ein Hashlosha is about one mile from central Gaza, and Holit is 9 miles to the southwest, about one mile from southern Gaza.

Yarisca said Israel, in cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, regularly tests chickens from Gaza for avian flu, and so far, the flocks there have aroused no cause for concern.

The H5N1 virus was detected in neighboring Egypt last month, and Boim said Thursday that the death of the birds in southern Israel might indicate the disease entered Israel from Egypt.

The H5N1 strain has killed or forced the slaughter of tens of millions of chickens and ducks across Asia since 2003, and recently spread to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Officials said there was no danger of infection from eating cooked chicken, turkey or eggs.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/health/main1414496.shtml

Just an interesting note.

I was in Wally World and Walgreens yesterday and today for some shopping. At 2 Walmart locations, all of the N95 masks were sold out. At 3 Walgreens every kind of mask was sold out.

I'm beginning to wonder if the tuna and dried milk suggestions might have spooked some DGIs.

Congo

March 20, 2006

Govt on bird flu alert on DRC border​

RICHARD LINGA

KAMPALA

THE government has put veterinary staff along the Uganda border with the Democratic of Republic of Congo on full alert following the death of 260 chickens and ducks of suspected Avian Flu in the DRC.

Agricultural officials in the DRC announced the death of birds on Thursday, but the birds had died three or four days previously. Some 100 of the birds had died in a single day in Tshikapa, a town in South Central Province of the Kasai Occidental.

The Director of Animal Resources in the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr William Olala Mukane says veterinary staff have been asked to monitor the border from Arua to western Uganda so that there are no birds imported in the country from Congo.

"We have alerted our staff to make sure that they monitor the Congo border so that we don't have any birds coming from there and secondly they have to report to us birds which are dying so that we can test them".

He, however, said the tests that are being carried out show no cases of Avian Influenza a.k.a bird flu. Last week, Uganda was thrown into panic when thousands of birds and poultry died in several districts of the country.

Mukane said cases that had been investigated showed that the birds were dying of New Castle disease and Gumbro, which kill chickens in large numbers.

Meanwhile, the government acquired a machine that can test bird flu and results released in five hours. The Commissioner for Livestock Health and Entomology, Nicholas Kauta, says the PCR H5-N1 tester is based at Entebbe Virus Research Institute.

http://www.monitor.co.ug/news/news03204.php

Taz,

While I agree that hunker in the bunker is the best response, I wonder if being a Red Cross volunteer that delivers basic necessities might garner some advantages like:

First shot at a working vaccine.

Unlimited Tamilflu

Assured source of supply for duration of pandemic (or until you contract the disease) for self and family


I am thinking of a character from the Daniel Defoe novel that actually worked during the plague, but stayed away from his home so as not to infect his loved ones. He could only see them from a distance...

If I don't volunteer I have more value at home, I believe.

Maintaining food supplies, garden, caring for the others who join us, sharing community information. I expect to be plenty busy here without driving elsewhere.

I don't think there is anything like "unlimited tamiflu" and am not convinced it will mean anything if I can get it. Also, I don't want to be first in line for a vaccine.

Taz said:

“We will take care of the immediate needs of those who have been infected,” she said. “We continue to need volunteers because if this hits, the hospitals will be full and people will have to be prepared to stay in their homes.”



Right....how many volunteers are going to step up to the plate? Especially those with children or an ill relative at home? Hunker in the bunker is your best bet.

Taz

Click to expand...

The Canadians are solving that dilema: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=188588

Post #2 said:

Pandemic bill raises alarm
Health-care workers could face fines of up to $100,000 and jail if they refuse to work.​

By JOHN MINER, FREE PRESS HEALTH REPORTER

Sweeping new Ontario emergency legislation has health-care workers afraid they may be forced to choose between protecting their families and a jail sentence if a flu pandemic hits the province.

Bill 56 has raised alarms with doctors, nurses and other health-care workers because it contains a clause that gives the Ontario cabinet power to "authorize" any person reasonably qualified to provide services in a declared emergency.

The penalty for violating the proposed law is a fine of up to $100,000 and a year in jail for each day the order isn't obeyed.

"That's a big stick," said Goderich emergency department doctor Ken Milne.

Milne said yesterday doctors and other health-care workers want to care for people but shouldn't be forced to work if anti-viral drugs aren't available to them and their families.

"What happens when you come home at night and you have a tickle in your throat. Do you want to expose your wife, your kids to something because you have answered the call?

"It is one thing to lose your dad or your mother, it is another thing to bring it home and wipe out your family," he said.

Dr. Merrilee Fullerton of Kanata, near Ottawa, said as a mother her first duty is to her dependent children, even in the face of a flu pandemic.

"I have already given the best years of my life training to become a physician and in providing care. Now that I have a family, do not ask me to sacrifice myself in a pandemic for which most medical treatments will be useless anyway, and in which health-care resources like respirators are likely to be overwhelmed," she wrote in an e-mail to The Free Press.

In introducing the legislation in December, Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Monte Kwinter said he wanted the bill passed by June.

Kwinter said the law will give the government the ability to say to people: "No, you can't leave. We need you to do this job."

Responding to members' concern about being "conscripted," the Ontario Medical Association has raised the issue with Kwinter's ministry and the Health Ministry.

Association president Dr. Greg Flynn said he's been assured the legislation isn't meant to let government force health professionals to work against their will.

Yesterday, the Health Ministry referred questions about the bill to Kwinter's ministry, which didn't return calls.

A spokesperson for the Ontario Nurses Association said its legal analysts are still studying the bill's meaning.

"We have great concerns about the bill," said Vicki McKenna, first vice-president of the ONA.

"The reality is, our nurses are on the front lines, at the bedside and they are the ones at the highest risk of exposure."

Nurses are prepared to provide care but want the proper protective gear such as the correct masks when a flu pandemic hits, McKenna said.

"We aren't getting those assurances at this time," she said.

Tim Carrie, chairperson of the Canadian Auto Workers union, Local 27, which represents registered practical nurses at London hospitals, said Bill 56 fits with other legislation from Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government, which gives it all sorts of arbitrary powers.

"It obviously gives us concern. It looks like they are trying to centralize power at Queen's Park," he said.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2006/03/01/1467449-sun.html

Click to expand...

Egypt has 'second bird flu case'​

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4822912.stm

Egypt has reported a second suspected human case of bird flu, a day after it announced that a 30-year-old woman is thought to have died from the virus.

The health ministry says a man was admitted to hospital on Thursday after suffering symptoms of the disease, and has since recovered.

Both cases of the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of the virus originated in the Qaliubiya region, north of Cairo.

Further tests are being carried out to confirm the virus in both cases.

Drug treatment

The official Mena news agency said that the 28-year-old man was treated with the drug Tamiflu and appeared to have recovered.

Egypt said on Saturday that a woman who maintained a domestic bird farm despite a ban on the practice had died of a fever at Cairo's main hospital a day earlier.

Last month, the government ordered the slaughter of all poultry kept in homes, as part of efforts to stop the spread of the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.

The H5N1 strain has killed at least 90 people since early 2003, mostly in South-East Asia.

The virus can infect humans in close contact with birds. There is still no evidence that it can be passed from human to human.

Link to tomorrows (3/20) BF thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?p=1786694&posted=1#post1786694