2/10/07-2/16/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread: Turkey has H5N1; UK, Hungary may be linked

Link to last week's thread:

HEALTH - 2/3/07-2/9/07|Weekly Bird Flu Thread: H5N1 infection 'more easy than thought'

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=228290

Johns Hopkins on influenza:

http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/33/450/Rashid Chotani.pdf

National Avian Influenza Surveillance Information:

http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov/ai/

CDC
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/index.htm

WHO
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/index.html

CIDRAP
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/

Official U.S. Government Web site
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/

FAO
http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseases-cards/special_avian.html

Public Health Agency of Canada
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/influenza/avian_qa_e.html

European Union
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/dyna/influenza/country_en.htm

The World Bank
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...68427~piPK:64168435~theSitePK:1793593,00.html

Turkey confirms new outbreak of H5N1 bird flu virus in fowl​

http://www.today.az/news/society/36248.html

10 February 2007 [02:25] - Today.Az
Turkey's Agriculture Ministry confirmed Friday that the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus caused the deaths of 170 fowl in a village in southeastern Turkey.

The latest outbreak of the virus was detected on Feb. 5, in the village of Bogazkoy in Batman province, where authorities they have quarantined three villages and culled about 1,650 birds.

Final results from a laboratory in Ankara confirmed the deaths were linked to the H5N1 strain of the virus, the ministry said in a statement Friday.

Authorities have also hospitalized four children with flu symptoms from Bogazkoy as a precaution. The children, between the ages of 1 and 16, had reportedly come in contact with the sick fowl. Tests are under way to determine whether the children caught the virus.

Experts worry the H5N1 strain of the virus, which remains hard for people to catch, will mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic.

So far, most cases of human infection have been traced to direct contact with infected birds.

The Agriculture Ministry said it had informed the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the European Commission of the test results.

It said protective clothing and equipment were being sent to the affected region, and that the gathering and slaughter of domestic birds was continuing in two villages.

During an outbreak of H5N1 in Turkey in January 2006, 12 people were infected and four of them died.

H5N1 has claimed at least 165 human lives worldwide since it began spreading through Asian poultry farms in late 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Authorities were investigating whether the virus might have been brought by migratory birds.

Turkey has avian flu; UK, Hungary outbreaks may be linked​

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/avianflu/news/feb0907turkey.html

Feb 9, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – Turkey announced today an H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a farm in the southeastern part of the country, as English authorities explored the possibility of a connection between recent outbreaks in Suffolk and Hungary.

A report submitted to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) by Turkey's agriculture ministry said the outbreak began Feb 5 and affected poultry in a village in Batman province, about 460 miles from Ankara.

The source of the outbreak was contact with wild birds, the report said. Of the nearly 800 birds that were destroyed, most were backyard chickens, though turkeys, geese, ducks, and pigeons also were included. Turkey's last outbreak of H5N1 in birds was in March 2006.

England sorts out H5N1 evidence
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said in a press release yesterday that preliminary tests indicate that H5N1 viruses from a turkey farm outbreak may be identical to the virus that caused a recent outbreak in Hungary. Bernard Matthews Holdings, Ltd., the poultry producer that owns the affected farm in England, has an operation in Hungary.

The DEFRA report said a company meat processing plant adjacent to the farm handled imported poultry products from Hungary.

"Our investigations have shown that one possible route of infection is poultry product imported from Hungary," DEFRA Deputy Chief Veterinarian Fred Landeg said. "It is important that this is investigated thoroughly, along with all other possible routes."

Bernard Matthews has voluntarily agreed to suspend poultry movement between its English and Hungarian operations until the investigation is complete, Landeg said.

DEFRA said it believed the imported Hungarian poultry came from outbreak-free parts of the country. (In late January geese at a farm in southwestern Hungary tested positive for H5N1, marking the virus's first appearance in Europe this year.) However, the agency said new laboratory information revealed yesterday that the transmission of the virus was from poultry to poultry. "This makes transmission direct from Hungary more likely, rather than a pathway via wild birds," DEFRA stated.

As part of outbreak investigation, samples were taken from the remaining 21 poultry sheds on the Suffolk farm, DEFRA said. Initial tests indicated that birds in three of the sheds were infected with avian flu, though none showed clinical signs before they were culled.

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) announced today that it is exploring whether any H5N1-infected meat entered the food chain. "Our advice, that avian flu does not pose a food safety risk, remains unchanged. However, it is illegal for infected meat to be in our food, and so the agency would take any appropriate action if it were found there," FSA said in a press release.

No human H5N1 cases have been reported in connection with the outbreak. The UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) said in a press release yesterday that three workers who were involved in the outbreak had flu-like symptoms and were tested for H5N1 avian flu. All samples were negative, and the patients are undergoing routine treatment for their illnesses or have been discharged from the hospital, the HPA said.

FAO warns about risk to cats
In other avian flu news, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released a statement yesterday advising cat owners who live in areas where the H5N1 virus has been found in poultry or wild birds to keep their cats away from infected birds and warning that cats living on commercial poultry farms should be kept indoors.

The FAO advisory cited unconfirmed reports that H5N1 has been detected in feral cats that roam near poultry markets in Java and Sumatra where recent H5N1 avian outbreaks have occurred. Cats can become infected by feeding on sick domestic or wild birds, and they can shed the virus from their respiratory and digestive tracts.

"This raises some concern, not only because cats could act as intermediary hosts in the spread of the H5N1 virus between species but also because growth in cats might help the H5N1 virus to adapt into a more highly infectious strain that could spark an influenza pandemic," said FAO Assistant Director-General Alexander Müller.

Peter Roeder, FAO animal health officer, said findings from Indonesia in January suggest that 80% of cats in outbreak areas are not infected. "This is rather encouraging because it indicates that cats are unlikely to constitute a reservoir of virus infection," he said. "Cats are more likely to be a dead-end host for the H5N1 virus."

In a related development, the US Embassy in Jakarta issued a letter Feb 7 to Americans traveling or living in Indonesia urging them to keep abreast of local news reports about avian flu outbreaks and advising them to avoid contact with wild or stray cats. The letter also urged Americans to keep their cats away from sick or dying poultry and out of areas where H5N1 outbreaks have occurred. Domestic cats that primarily live inside residences should not be at risk for catching H5N1, the letter said.

Canadian survey finds no dangerous viruses
Canada found no highly pathogenic strains of avian flu in in its second annual wild bird survey, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced today. More than 12,000 birds were tested.

Samples were collected from live and dead migratory and resident birds. Additional sampling was done in Iceland, a mingling point for birds from North America and Europe, the CFIA said.

Like the 2005 survey, the 2006 investigation found various H5 and H7 avian flu viruses, which can affect domestic poultry. "Finding avian influenza viruses in wild birds is not unexpected. Influenza viruses commonly circulate in wild birds with little or no impact on the health of the birds or other species," the CFIA said.

In August 2006, the US Department of Agriculture and Department of the Interior expanded a wild bird surveillance program beyond Alaska to the lower 48 states, Hawaii, and other Pacific islands. So far birds in six instances have tested positive for the low-pathogenic North American H5N1 avian flu virus, a mild strain that has been found several times before.

As of today, the US Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Early Detection Data System (HEDDS) has tested 74,140 samples. The 2006 sampling season runs from April 2006 through March 2007.

H5N1 virus may be in human food chain​

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1362368.ece

Lewis Smith and Jack Malvern

Bernard Matthews turkey products may need to be withdrawn from supermarket shelves to prevent bird flu spreading, the Government’s chief scientific officer has said.

Professor Sir David King is concerned that wild birds may come into contact with turkey products infected with the H5N1 virus.

However, the concern was played down by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which decided that the threat to animal and human health was too small to warrant a recall. But products will continue to be monitored, and if there is any sign that infection has reached the food chain, the meats will be withdrawn.

Peter Ainsworth, the Tory environment spokesman, has demanded a public statement by David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, on why he failed to mention the link to Hungary when he briefed Parliament about the outbreak on Monday.

In the Commons on Monday Mr Miliband said: “The chicks [at the Suffolk farm] all came from within this country, so there is no Hungarian connection of that sort.” He said: “The factory involved in the Hungarian outbreak was not a Bernard Matthews factory.”

Mr Ainsworth also asked for details of the exact timing and extent of poultry movements between Bernard Matthews plants in Hungary and the UK, and how soon the authorities were informed of them.

Scientists were at pains yesterday to reassure the public that turkey meat, even if it is infected, should present no flu threat to human health if properly cooked.

Alick Simmons, the FSA veterinary director, added: “The poultry meat in your fridge does not represent a public health risk, provided you follow the normal rules and advice we provide about cooking.”

A small fall in turkey sales was reported by supermarkets, but consumers have so far refused to panic about the bird flu outbreak in Holton, Suffolk.

At Sainsbury’s there was a 10 per cent fall in sales, while Tesco said there had been a slight reduction. Other supermarkets said that sales were unaffected and none felt there was sufficient reason to remove products from shelves.

Sir David said that the biggest threat is if wild birds become infected with the deadly strain, because it could then spread rapidly. “That sort of direct transfer is my biggest worry, because the transfer could occur through, for example, wild animals and wild birds, so the real concern now is whether or not the virus is isolated to the birds that have been culled,” he said.

Investigations into the outbreak continued yesterday with the focus on establishing the chain of infection. In particular, investigators are keen to find out how it spread within the farm and whether wild birds could have played a role in spreading it from one shed to another.

Genetic analysis of the virus showed the flu strain to be virtually identical to outbreaks among captive geese in the Csongrád region of Hungary last month. Bernard Matthews uses a food-processing plant in Hungary, but it is more than 100 miles (160 km) from the infected regions.

Ben Bradshaw, the Defra Minister, said that potential breaches of biological security measures at the Suffolk farm were being investigated.

USDA may allow China to import chickens to U.S.​

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/nation/16665792.htm

By David Goldstein
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to allow China, where 14 people have died of bird flu since 2003, to sell chicken to the United States.

The agency is drafting a rule that would permit China to export cooked poultry to Americans, even though public health officials have been warning for several years about a potential avian influenza pandemic.

Food safety watchdog groups are alarmed, but U.S. poultry producers, who would be facing new competition, are generally keeping mum. Some believe that the proposed rule could be a bargaining chip to get the Chinese to drop a ban on U.S. beef imports that they imposed after a case of mad-cow disease in 2003.

The World Health Organization has said that chicken and other poultry are safe to eat when cooked at the proper temperatures. USDA spokesman Steven Cohen said that since the exported chicken would be cooked, there'd be no risk to public health.

"It does appear at this time there would be no objections" from USDA's Animal and Plant Health Services, he said.

Avian flu is a contagious disease among birds, and sometimes pigs. It can infect humans - if they either come in contact with infected birds or eat raw or undercooked infected poultry - in the form of a severe respiratory infection.

Cohen cautioned that the rule-making on Chinese chicken exports was in its infancy. But food safety advocates said they were surprised that the USDA was thinking about allowing poultry exports from China, given that the country has had 22 cases of the avian flu virus since 2003.

"The reality is China has had cases of avian influenza within their flocks," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group concerned with health and nutrition issues. "It wouldn't seem like a good time to be importing poultry, even cooked poultry."

The National Chicken Council, the industry's trade group, had no comment about the new rule. "We're going to have to wait and see," said spokesman Richard Lobb.

James Sumner, president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, said his "sole concern" would be whether China could satisfy the USDA's health and safety requirements.

The proposed rule would continue to loosen restrictions on China's chicken exports. In 2006, the USDA approved a rule that allows China to export cooked chicken to the United States, provided that the raw chicken China used came from elsewhere.

Cohen said the chicken had to be from either the United States or Canada, because the birds had to be from countries free of any trace of the avian flu with food safety precautions similar to those in the U.S.

The Office of Management and Budget had to review the policy change, a process that normally takes weeks, if not months. But the 2006 rule was on a fast track. The OMB received the rule from the USDA on April 18, approved it April 19 and officially announced it April 20, the same day that Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Washington on an official visit.

Word that the USDA wanted to ease restrictions further surfaced early last month when an Indian news service reported that a top USDA official had been in China recently for talks about poultry exports.

"The old rule hasn't even cooled off and they're already moving toward an expansion," said Tony Corbo, a legislative lobbyist for Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit food safety watchdog group. "There doesn't seem to be a track record to evaluate what China has done, even under the old system. Why are we doing this?"

The issue could have just as much to do with cows as it does chickens. The beef industry has been unable to tap the Chinese market since Beijing blocked American beef imports after a case of mad-cow disease surfaced in 2003.

China, meanwhile, has been trying for several years to export chicken here. The United States is the world's largest producer of chicken. Less than 1 percent of the chicken consumed here comes from abroad.

Cohen denied that the proposed chicken rule had anything to do with an effort to coax China to drop its beef ban, but industry insiders and observers said they thought it was a factor. They said China wants a quid pro quo for dropping its beef ban and often links issues in trade talks.

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy couldn't be reached for comment.

Since the late 1990s, avian flu, known as the H5N1 virus, has been spreading among some bird flocks in Asia. More recently it has spread to parts of Europe. The World Health Organization has reported 272 human cases and 166 deaths since 2003.

Several public health experts said they were unaware of the USDA's efforts to allow China to export poultry to the United States.

"My eyebrows raise when I hear it," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association. "Then I have to ask, `OK, how could one do this safely?'"

Critics said USDA inspectors previously have found problems with China's food inspection system, including sanitation and whether tests for E. coli, a bacteria that can cause severe food poisoning, were being conducted. Some new safety controls were subsequently put in place.

Cohen said the USDA would annually inspect plants in China that are selected to process chicken bound for the United States.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who chairs the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee, said that the proposed rule was "dangerous" and that her subcommittee would monitor the issue.

New reports of bird flu in different regions spark concerns of spread​

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070210/kyodo/d8n6gq8g1.html

(Kyodo) _ A U.N. official expressed concerns Friday that the lethal H5N1 strain of avian influenza could spread further, given the new outbreaks of bird flu in at least 10 countries over the past two months, including cases in Japan.

"Although the number of outbreaks is lower this year than in the same period last year, the spate of new reports in different geographical locations has caused us to anticipate a further spread of H5N1," David Nabarro, the U.N. system influenza coordinator, told reporters at a press conference at U.N. headquarters.

Besides Japan, the H5N1 avian flu virus has been reported in poultry in Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, China, Thailand, Egypt, Nigeria, Hungary and Britain.

As of Friday, there were unconfirmed, but very likely cases of the virus affecting Russia and Turkey, the official said.

Nabarro also said the upsurge was not unexpected. Since 2003 there has been a rise in the number of outbreaks in poultry and of human H5N1 cases during the period from December through April.

"It is expected that more outbreaks will follow, although their geographical distribution is largely unpredictable," he said.



Human infections have been confirmed in China, Egypt, Nigeria and Indonesia and are likely in other regions as well, the official noted.

The virus has led to the culling of millions of birds across Asia since 2003 causing more than 160 to die worldwide, with Indonesia having the world's highest human death toll. Sixty-three people have died from the virus. Of that number, six have died so far this year.

In addition to concerns about Indonesia, Nabarro is also worried about outbreaks in Egypt of which there have been 20 human cases, with 12 of them being fatal.

The situation in Nigeria is also worrisome as it is the first sub-Saharan African country to report outbreaks of H5N1 in 2006 and the first human case, he said.

There are fears that the virus could spread further through the legal or illegal movement of poultry and poultry products and interactions with infected bird populations. Niger, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Djibouti have also been impacted so far.

In Japan, four cases have been confirmed to be the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain this year in Okayama and Miyazaki prefectures in southwestern Japan.

The U.N. official did not seem to be overly concerned about the cases, however, as Japanese authorities have used "intensive culling" and imposed "draconian movement restrictions."

Much like the cases in Britain and Hungary, Japan has also utilized "textbook stamping out operations."

"I think the Japanese have had to struggle with it seemed, I think, there were four farms that were affected and they came sequentially and I wasn't quite sure, and I don't think anybody is quite sure why there appeared to be sort of daisy chain spreading," he said.

Nabarro emphasized that officials continue to monitor whether outbreaks are fueled by undisclosed trade or wild bird movements in the outbreaks in Japan and South Korea. He added it was hard to explain how they may have occurred.

Latest Bird Flu Blamed on Bird Trading​

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/09/ap3414664.html

By EDITH M. LEDERER 02.09.07, 9:56 PM ET

Experts suspect the current spread of bird flu in Asia, Africa and Europe is mainly a result of trade in infected live birds rather than transmission through wild birds, the U.N. official coordinating the global fight against avian influenza said Friday.

Dr. David Nabarro said investigators looking into the cause of a bird flu outbreak at a commercial turkey farm in Britain are now focusing on a possible link with the transfer of partly processed birds from a farm in southeastern Hungary where there was an outbreak last month.

Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said preliminary inquiries indicated the strain of H5N1 bird flu found at the British farm was identical to the strain found last month in Hungary. Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said the government was investigating whether there were "bio-security breaches" at the British farm, owned by Bernard Matthews PLC, Europe's biggest turkey producer.

Movement of poultry - either live or dead - from an area where H5N1 bird flu had been found violates U.N. guidelines, Nabarro said.

The U.N. bird flu chief said the recent upsurge in H5N1 bird flu outbreaks around the world is not a surprise, explaining that there have been seasonal spikes in each of the past few years.

"Since 2003, we've seen a rise in the number of reported outbreaks in poultry and indeed of human cases ... between the period December-April, and we expect that there will be more outbreaks," Nabarro said, adding that new cases could emerge through June.

During the last two months, he said, there have been new outbreaks of bird flu in Indonesia, Vietnam, South Korea, China, Thailand, Japan, Egypt, Hungary, Nigeria and Britain - and a new outbreak was reported in Turkey.

"And human infections have been confirmed in China, Egypt, Nigeria and Indonesia and they're suspected in other locations as well," he said.

H5N1 has prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003 and caused the deaths of more than 160 people worldwide, around a third of them in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

Most people killed so far have been infected by domestic fowl and the virus remains very hard for humans to catch. Nabarro said about half the people infected die.

But experts fear it could mutate into a form that easily spreads among humans, sparking a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

South Korea Reports Sixth Outbreak of Bird Flu Since November ​

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aN.8HFdw8eyk&refer=worldwide

By Seonjin Cha

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea reported its sixth outbreak of avian influenza since November last year after chickens at a poultry farm southeast of Seoul were confirmed to have died from the virus.

The H5N1 strain was detected at a farm at Anseong city, 77 kilometers (48 miles) southeast of the capital, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said in a faxed statement.

The National Veterinary Research Quarantine Service confirmed the outbreak yesterday after the farm owner reported that chickens had begun laying fewer eggs and a number had died since Feb. 6, the statement said.

The ministry ordered the culling of about 240,000 birds, including 133,000 chickens, at the farm and within a three kilometers radius. It also declared a 10-kilometer quarantine zone to control the movement of the poultry and eggs, the statement said.

South Korea had five outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry since the nation's first confirmed case in more than two years in November. The number in cases in fuelling concern the virus may start to become more adept in infecting humans, not just birds.

The H5N1 strain is known to have infected 272 people in 11 countries since 2003, killing 166 of them, the World Health Organization said Feb. 6. The United Nations health agency hasn't confirmed any human cases in South Korea.

3 children test negative for bird flu amid outbreak in Turkish village​

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/10/europe/EU-GEN-Turkey-Bird-Flu.php

ANKARA, Turkey: Three children tested negative for bird flu amid an outbreak of the disease in a Turkish village, while a fourth child was still undergoing tests, the Health Ministry said.

The children were hospitalized with flu symptoms Thursday, after 170 domestic fowl died in their southeastern village of Bogazkoy. Tests on Friday confirmed the birds were infected with the H5N1 virus strain.

Tests showed three of the children were not infected, the ministry said in a statement. Further tests were being conducted on the fourth patient, it said.

Authorities quarantined three villages and culled at least 1,650 birds since the outbreak in the Batman province.

Experts worry the H5N1 strain, which remains hard for people to catch, will mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to direct contact with sick birds.

During an H5N1 outbreak in Turkey in January 2006, 12 people were infected and four of them died.

Hungary denies UK bird flu link​

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/globe-article.php?yyyy=2007&mm=02&dd=10&nav_category=117&nav_id=39547

10 February 2007 | 11:44 | Source: BBC
BUDAPEST, LONDON -- Hungarian officials say there is no evidence that an outbreak of bird flu in Britain was caused by infected poultry from Hungary.

Hungary's deputy chief vet told the BBC he still believed that wild birds may have carried the virus to the UK.

But he said there was a suspicion the trail of infection led back to Hungary.

Last week, almost 160,000 turkeys were culled at a UK food plant - which has a sister site in Hungary - after the discovery of the H5N1 virus.

The H5N1 virus does not pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass easily from one person to another.

But experts fear the virus could mutate at some point in the future and trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

Infected poultry

Bernard Matthews owns the turkey farm in Suffolk where the outbreak occurred, and also Saga Foods in Hungary.

UK government officials are investigating Bernard Matthews' conduct, after it emerged that the firm had been shipping partly processed meat from Hungary into the UK.

Investigators in Budapest are trying to establish whether the Bernard Matthews plant in western Hungary had received consignments of infected poultry.

Last month bird flu was discovered at geese farms in the south east of the country.

Saga Foods has denied that the virus entered Britain from its product.

Bird flu reported in Pakistan capital​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070210/ap_on_he_me/pakistan_bird_flu

11 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The deadly H5N1 stain of bird flu has been confirmed at a home in the Pakistani capital, the third such case in about a week. But the virus has not affected any one in the country, an official said Saturday.

The virus, which badly affected Pakistan's poultry industry last year, was found earlier this week in a chicken flock and peacocks at a home in Islamabad, said Mohammed Afzal, spokesman for Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock statement.

"Laboratory tests conducted on samples from one home in Islamabad confirmed the birds had been infected," he said.

However, Afzal said people should not be panicked about the detection of virus merely at one home, as it had not spread to commercial farms, and that poultry eggs and meat were still safe to eat.

Last year, authorities had slaughtered thousands of birds after samples from the poultry farms tested positive for the avian influenza.

There has been no reports of the disease among humans in Pakistan, Afzal said.

Indonesia invites more companies to develop bird flu vaccine​

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200702/09/eng20070209_348677.html

Indonesia opens possibility for more companies to develop bird flu vaccine although the government recently signed deal with U.S. drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare Corp., an official said Thursday.

"Yes, we still open our door if there are other companies interested to (cooperate with us)," Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari was quoted by the national Antara news agency as saying.

The government and Baxter Wednesday signed a preliminary deal to develop and produce bird flu vaccine for humans in volume of 2 million dosages.

Under the agreement, Indonesia will provide strains of the H5N1virus circulating in the nation and Baxter will offer technical expertise to produce the vaccine.

Source: Xinhua

Bird flu resurfaces in northern Nigerian state​

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=298672

Kano, Nigeria
10 February 2007 09:36

Bird flu has reappeared, after an eight-month lull, on poultry farms in a fourth state in northern Nigeria, officials said on Friday.

"In the past one week we culled 5 000 chickens following laboratory confirmation of the existence of the avian flu virus in samples of dead chickens," said Bala Usman Suleiman, Bauchi state agriculture commissioner.

"The outbreak has also spread to backyard poultry in some parts of the state such as Azare and Misau towns," said Suleiman by telephone from the state capital, Bauchi.

Bauchi was one of several states ravaged by bird flu when the deadly H5N1 virus was first reported in Nigeria in February 2006. After a lull, the virus resurfaced last month in three other northern states: Katsina, Sokoto and Kano.

"The affected backyard poultry farms had a few hundred chickens which were killed and the farms were disinfected to contain the spread.

"We have directed the same measures to be taken on any backyard poultry where the avian flu virus is detected," Suleiman said.

In March last year, shortly after bird flu first struck Bauchi, some villagers broke into a poultry farm outside the state capital and carted away dozens of flu-infected chickens awaiting incineration in order to consume them. -- Sapa-AFP

Third bird flu case confirmed in Pakistan​

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-02/10/content_5724203.htm

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan confirmed Saturday the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus has been found in samples obtained from a home in the capital Islamabad.

This was the country's third bird flu case since early February, when the virus was found in samples received from two households in Rawalpindi and in northwestern city of Mansehra.

However, no case of the virus has been reported from commercial birds in the country, Mohammed Afzal, spokesman for the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, was quoted by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan as saying.

"An effective monitoring system has been evolved to check any report of Bird flu in the country," Afzal said.

People keeping fancy birds have been asked to get their birds vaccinated against avian influenza and prevent them from contacting with wild birds, according to the official.

The virus hit Pakistan's poultry industry last year and authorities slaughtered thousands of birds

Combination Of Drugs Should Be Stockpiled To Fight Flu Pandemic, Say Experts​

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070209074203.htm

Science Daily — A combination of antiviral drugs should be stockpiled for use in an influenza pandemic, say researchers in this week's BMJ.

We currently have two classes of drugs that are effective against influenza viruses: the ion channel inhibitors (amantadine and rimantadine) and the neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir and zanamivir).

Although ion channel inhibitors are effective against several strains of influenza viruses, they are not being widely stockpiled for a future flu pandemic because they cause unacceptable side effects and their use is associated with a rapid emergence of resistance.

But researchers argue that combining the two types of drugs may reduce side effects and the risk of resistance, and could play an important role in our armoury against a future flu pandemic.

In laboratory tests, the combination of ion channel and neuraminidase inhibitors reduced the emergence of resistance and even prevented the emergence of resistant strains of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus.

Ion channel inhibitors are also considerably cheaper than neuraminidase inhibitors, so the cost implications of maintaining stocks of both types of drug are therefore modest, say the authors. These drugs are also chemically stable, giving them a long shelf life.

The World Health Organisation recently recommended combined use of ion channel and neuraminidase inhibitors against the H5N1 strain, but this recommendation was deemed weak because of a lack of good evidence. Adequately sized trials of such combinations are therefore urgently needed, they add.

Several countries including the US, UK, and Greece are already stockpiling ion channel inhibitors. Other countries should consider following suit, say the authors. Failure to stockpile both types of antiviral drugs could prove costly.

An accompanying editorial discusses new guidelines on the clinical management of pandemic flu and says that the United Kingdom is well advanced in its preparations for a flu pandemic.

Hong Kong bird tests positive for H5N1
AFP​

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/10022007/323/hong-kong-bird-tests-positive-h5n1.html

Saturday February 10, 02:18 PM

HONG KONG (AFP) - Tests on a blue magpie found dead in Hong Kong have shown it was infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, the government said.

The bird was found in the densely populated Sham Shui Po district on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said in a statement Saturday, saying the virus had been confirmed after a series of tests.

Hong Kong was the scene of the world's first reported major bird flu outbreak among humans in 1997, when six people died of a then unknown mutation of the avian flu virus. Millions of poultry were culled.

The statement also said that initial tests on a silver-eared Masias found dead in the city show it was infected with bird flu, but the less virulent H5 strain.

The bird was found in the Mong Kok district on Wednesday.

Officials Saturday inspected stalls in the area's Bird Garden and found nothing unusual, the statement added.

Seven birds have been found dead with H5N1 in Hong Kong so far this year.

The H5N1 strain is potentially deadly to humans. Bird flu has killed more than 160 people worldwide since late 2003 and there are fears it could mutate and trigger a deadly human flu pandemic.

China to import chickens to the U.S. when they have BF?

WTF!!!

Farmers want Hungary bird flu controls checked​

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL1075917120070210?pageNumber=2

The virus may have been brought to Britain from Hungary in turkey meat, or by contaminated vehicles, Britain's deputy chief veterinarian Fred Landeg said.

But Bernard Matthews says the imported meat came from parts of Hungary far from the regions sealed off after the deadly virus was found in geese.

The Food Standards Agency says there is no threat to consumers as long as meat is cooked properly.
Photo

It is investigating whether meat contaminated with bird flu has reached shops.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's on Friday reported a 10 percent drop in poultry sales over the previous five days compared with a year ago, although other retailers said they had seen no impact.

The H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003 and although it remains largely an animal disease, it can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds.



The virus may have been brought to Britain from Hungary in turkey meat, or by contaminated vehicles, Britain's deputy chief veterinarian Fred Landeg said.

But Bernard Matthews says the imported meat came from parts of Hungary far from the regions sealed off after the deadly virus was found in geese.

The Food Standards Agency says there is no threat to consumers as long as meat is cooked properly.
Photo

It is investigating whether meat contaminated with bird flu has reached shops.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's on Friday reported a 10 percent drop in poultry sales over the previous five days compared with a year ago, although other retailers said they had seen no impact.

The H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003 and although it remains largely an animal disease, it can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds.

'No risk from turkey meat'​

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007060845,00.html

EXPERTS have played down the risk posed to humans by Britain's bird flu outbreak.

They say there is no scientific basis for removing poulty products from UK shops.

Their claims are in reaction to an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain at a Bernard Matthews farm in Holton, Suffolk.

Supermarkets could be forced to take poulty products off their shelves after claims the virus might have travelled to the UK in a consignment of dead turkeys from a plant in Hungary.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is investigating whether the contaminated meat could have entered the food chain.

The Government has warned that a recall might be necessary to stop the disease spreading to other animals.

Sainsbury’s has already seen a 10 per cent drop in sales across its poultry products as consumers react to the latest health scare but scientists are quick to point out there is little risk.

Paul Hunter, professor of health production at the University of East Anglia, said: “The reason the FSA will not rule out a product recall has nothing to do with risk to human health.

“The major reason for recalling products would be to prevent the virus re-entering the bird population.

“If a contaminated product was discarded and eaten by birds there is the potential for this to cause a further outbreak.”

Prof Hunter cited three main reasons why the risk to humans from food consumption is so low, claiming firstly that it was “very unlikely” food had actually been contaminated.

The fact that the virus dies within a few days even if there is contamination and that it does not bind readily to the human gut also means it is unlikely to affect people in this way.

Nigel Horrox, the president of the British Veterinary Poultry Association, also assured consumers that the risk from bird flu-contaminated meat was “virtually zero”.

He urged that any recall be based on “scientific facts, not political emotion” and that action should be proportionate to the “real risks”.

Mr Horrox said: “Scientifically there is no real basis for a product recall.”

Farmers in England, Wales call for ban on poultry
imports as Britain investigates bird flu outbreak​

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/10/europe/EU-GEN-Britain-Bird-Flu.php

LONDON: A farmers' union has called for a ban on all raw imported poultry meat from countries infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus until the cause of the outbreak at a British poultry farm is established.

Scientists are investigating whether the British outbreak was caused by a consignment of dead turkeys imported from Hungary.

Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is examining the transfer of partly processed birds from a Hungarian plant to a farm in Holton, 130 miles (210 kilometers) northeast of London, owned by Bernard Matthews PLC, Europe's biggest turkey producer.

The department said preliminary inquiries indicated the strain of H5N1 bird flu found in Britain was identical to the strain found last month in Hungary.

Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw said the government was investigating whether there were "bio-security breaches" at the British farm, where 159,000 turkeys were slaughtered after the outbreak was discovered.

Officials have said there are "negligible" risks to the public and poultry industry. Several countries, however, have banned British poultry imports in response.

Charles Bourns, chairman of the poultry board of the National Farmers' Union, told Channel 4 Television on Friday that if the H5N1 strain "has come in from Hungary this time, then the measures that are being taken to prevent the disease entering the U.K. have broken down somewhere. Therefore, maybe the easiest way out of this situation would be to stop the importation of raw poultry meat from any country with H5N1 until the government has worked out how it got here."

He said, "I am not trying to scaremonger. I am just saying that logically we must stop this disease from spreading."

The nearly 100-year-old union represents farmers and growers of England and Wales.

Hungary's deputy chief vet, Dr. Lajos Bognar, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Saturday that it has not been proved that the turkey plant in his country was the source of Britain's bird flu outbreak.

"Of course, it can be the same (virus), but I can say that the virus circulating in the birds — you can find this virus in other places also," he said.

Hungarian authorities are investigating a slaughterhouse 60 miles (95 kilometers) from a H5N1 outbreak believed to have trade links with a turkey farm in Hungary that Matthews owns.

"It is confirmed that there is a trade between this slaughterhouse and Bernard Matthews," said Bognar. "He buys products from that slaughterhouse, so we are investigating the situation — documentation, registration."

Movement of poultry — either live or dead — from an area where H5N1 bird flu had been found violates U.N. guidelines.

Bird flu has killed or prompted the culling of millions of birds worldwide since late 2003, when it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks. It has killed at least 165 people worldwide, but remains difficult for humans to catch. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a global pandemic.

So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with sick birds.

WHO clears bird flu samples of 4 people​

http://paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?168595

Sunday February 11, 2007 (0142 PST)

ISLAMABAD: World Health Organization (WHO) has cleared the bird flue sample of four employees working in poultry farm of Rawalpindi where deadly H5N1 was reported.

It is merit mentioning here that recently Pakistani scientists found the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in a small flock of chickens in Rawalpindi and Mansehra on Feb 03.

On Feb 04, four peacocks, three turkeys and 10 chickens owned by a resident of Islamabad died due to bird flu, whereas the sample of house owner was still not received by WHO.

Spokesman of WHO Maj Gen (Retd) Masood Anwar talking to Online said that we had received samples of four people working in poultry farm of Rawalpindi where bird flu was reported while the result of their samples was negative.

He went on to say that Federal Health Ministry has issued directives to Health Departments of the country in this respect sothat it could not be further spread.

Six Egyptians being tested for bird flu: report​

http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/ne...T_0_NEWS-BIRDFLU-EGYPT-COL.XML&archived=False

CAIRO (Reuters) - Six Egyptians were being tested for bird flu in a town south of Cairo on Saturday after displaying flu-like symptoms, state news agency MENA reported.

They are from several villages near the town of Fayoum and range in age from three to 40, MENA said, adding that one of them, a 24-year-old female, was in critical condition.

MENA quoted a Health Ministry source as saying all six were known to have been in contact with poultry, and that biological samples had been sent for testing in the ministry's laboratories.

Samples were also taken from the poultry, as a number of them had died, he added.

On Monday, a 17-year-old Egyptian girl died of H5N1, making her the 12th Egyptian to die of the virus.

In January, the World Health Organization said that two people who had died of bird flu in Egypt were found to have a strain of the virus which has shown moderate resistance to the frontline antiviral Tamiflu.

Three hospitalised in Turkey over bird flu scare​

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=162198

Published: 2/10/2007

ANKARA - Two women and a three year-old boy were admitted to hospital in Turkey Saturday after coming into contact with birds that could have avian flu, local health authorities were quoted as saying.

Anatolia news agency quoted officials as saying the three, from the village of Bogazkoy, in the southeast, were hospitalised with high temperatures.

A quarantine zone had already been imposed within a 10-kilometre (six mile) radius around Bogazkoy, where 170 birds died, including three other villages nearby, the Turkish health ministry said.

Earlier, the ministry announced that three of four children from the same village who were tested for possible bird flu infection after the potentially lethal H5N1 strain of the virus resurfaced in Turkey do not have the disease.

Samples from the fourth child, aged 18 months, from the village in the mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Batman, were inadequate and new tests would be carried out, the health ministry said.

The two women from the village now admitted to hospital are aged 33 and 68.

"The three ....had been in contact with fowl and have been transferred to the university hospital at Dicle", Hasan Demir, head of the local health authority was quoted as saying.

The hospital is in Diyarbakir, main town of southeastern Turkey.

"They will remain in hospital under observation until the results of tests are made known," the official said.

A man who had been in close contact with infected birds was already under observation but was displaying no symptoms, the ministry said.

Samples from dead chicken, where bird flu in poultry was confirmed last Thursday, determined that the virus was of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, the Turkish agriculture ministry said Friday.

All poultry in the four villages, totalling some 1,350 chickens, turkeys and ducks, had been slaughtered by Saturday, Anatolia reported.

No trace of the virus had been detected by Saturday in provinces neighbouring Batman.

A major bird flu outbreak in Turkey claimed the lives of four teenagers in January last year in a remote region near the border with Iran, from where the virus quickly spread to more than a half of the country's 81 provinces.

Turkey's east and southeast are the country's poorest regions, where people are traditionally in close contact with poultry as backyard breeding is often their only source of livelihood.

The four children from Bogazkoy who were tested are aged between 18 months and 15 years.

The eldest child was in close contact with dead and sick birds, but had so far shown no symptoms of the disease, the health ministry said.

The other three children showed symptoms of respiratory tract infection, but had not been in close contact with birds.

Prior to this week's outbreak, bird flu had been eliminated in Turkey since the last recorded case on March 31, the agriculture ministry said. More than 2.5 million birds were culled across the country during last year's outbreak.

The four teenagers who succumbed to the disease a year ago -- three siblings and their cousin -- became the first human casualties of the H5N1 strain outside Southeast Asia and China.

Eight other people confirmed as H5N1 carriers by the WHO recovered after treatment.

Analysis suggests immunity to bird flu in people over age 35​

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=197e432d-13a6-4c60-a278-1ca75bb455fb&k=75727

Helen Branswell, Canadian Press
Published: Saturday, February 10, 2007


Nearly 90 per cent of the people who’ve been diagnosed so far with H5N1 avian flu were under age 40, a new analysis from the World Health Organization shows.

And two British scientists suggest that as yet unexplained phenomenon could be a clue that widespread immunity to infection with this virus may exist in people aged 35 and older.

In a letter to the March issue of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Matthew Smallman-Raynor of the University of Nottingham and Andrew Cliff of the University of Cambridge note that the age distribution of H5N1 human cases is "consistent with a biological model of geographically widespread immunity to avian influenza A (H5N1) in persons born before 1969."

"Such a model would account for the similar rates of disease activity in younger age categories, the sudden and pronounced reduction of cases in patients over 30-35 years of age, and the age skew that transcends the sociocultural and demographic contexts of countries and continents,” wrote Smallman-Raylor and Cliff, who teach analytical and theoretical geography respectively.

It is not known why H5N1 seems to prefer the young and rarely infects the elderly, the age group hardest hit by seasonal flu.

Suggested theories have included that children and young people may have closer exposure to poultry in countries where outbreaks are occurring.

Another possibility could be that older people are actually being infected but suffer such mild illness that they don’t come to the attention of health authorities. The few studies that have looked for mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic cases don’t support this idea, but experts believe larger studies need to be done before it could be ruled out.

The two British scientists looked at ages of reported cases and compared them to population figures for countries reporting human infections, looking to see if the demographic compositions of those countries provide some clues.

Their analysis showed that the imbalanced distribution of cases is seen in both genders, throughout the duration of the ongoing H5N1 outbreak (which began in late 2003) and across all countries which have had enough human cases so that statistics could be crunched.

That suggests that the trend probably isn’t due to local cultural or geographic factors, argued Smallman-Raynor and Cliff, who said the idea needs further study.

"If an element of immunity to avian influenza A (H5N1) does exist in older populations, its possible association with geographically widespread (intercontinental) influenza A events before the late 1960s merits further investigation,” they said.

The WHO analysis, published in the agency’s online journal the Weekly Epidemiological Review, also argues that the higher proportion of cases in younger age groups probably isn’t just due to the fact that young people make up a big part of the age structures of affected countries.

The report, which covers the 256 laboratory confirmed cases that occurred between Nov. 25, 2003 and Nov. 24, 2006, showed that the median age of cases was 18 years old.

Fifty-two per cent of cases were younger than 20 years old and 89 per cent were under age 40. Men and women made up virtually an equal number of cases.

The death rate was highest among cases aged 10 to 19; 76 per cent of cases in that group died. Cases aged 50 and over had the lowest death rate (40 per cent) followed by children under age five (44 per cent) and children aged five to nine (49 per cent).

The total case fatality rate was 60 per cent.

Cases have increased over time, the unnamed authors reported, with the cases in the second year of the three-year period twice as high as those recorded in the first year. From year 2 to year 3, the number of cases rose by about 25 per cent.

A graph of cases showed that while there are definitely seasonal peaks and troughs in human infections, there have been cases recorded every month since November 2004.

FAO: Source of bird flu that caused human death in
Nigeria not known​

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/10/africa/AF-GEN-Nigeria-Bird-Flu.php

LAGOS, Nigeria: International health experts probing Nigeria's first recorded death from the bird flu virus have not been able to determine the source of the infection, a senior official of the Food and Agriculture Organization said Saturday.

All the team found was that the chicken which caused the infection that killed a 22-year-old woman on Jan. 17 was purchased from a live bird market in Nigeria's biggest city of Lagos just before Christmas, said Tony Forman, leader of the U.N. team of experts helping Nigeria in the probe.

It was not clear how the chicken contracted bird flu.

"It's been a long time now. The prospects for determining where this came from is now virtually impossible," Forman, a bird flu expert with the FAO in Rome, told The Associated Press by phone from the Nigerian capital, Abuja, before the team's departure late Saturday.

Nigeria reported Africa's first cases of the deadly H5N1 virus a year ago. Following a fresh outbreak in January, health authorities announced that a 22-year-old woman who had slaughtered chicken to prepare a meal died of the virus.

Nigerian health officials said her 52-year-old mother had also died of similar symptoms earlier in January. But preliminary tests on tissue samples taken from the mother did not indicate she died of the H5N1 virus, Forman said, adding that the World Health Organization and the U.S. Center for Disease Control were conducting further investigations on her case.

Bird flu has so far been reported in poultry in 19 of Nigeria's 36 states.

The poultry market serving Lagos, the biggest city in Africa's most populous country of 140 million people, is widely distributed with birds coming in from all over the country, Forman said.

"As is common with cases in many developing countries where poultry is sold in live bird markets, chances exist for infection," he added.

The greatest risk of infection lie with slaughtering and preparing the carcass of birds for food, he said.

Bird flu has killed at least 165 people worldwide, though most victims were infected directly by sick birds. The virus is difficult for humans to catch, though scientists fear a mutation could make it easier for the virus to be transmitted between people, possibly sparking a pandemic.

Dead HK magpie had bird flu virus​

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s1844969.htm

Last Updated 11/02/2007, 09:15:50

Tests on a blue magpie found dead in Hong Kong show it was infected with the deadly H-5-N-1 bird flu virus.

The bird was found in the densely populated Sham Shui Po district on Tuesday.

A spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department says the virus was been confirmed after a series of tests.

Hong Kong was the scene of the world's first reported major bird flu outbreak among humans in 1997, when six people died of a then unknown mutation of the avian flu virus.

Turkey meat danger 'ignored' by Defra​

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=224302007

EDDIE BARNES POLITICAL EDITOR (ebarnes@scotlandonsunday.com)

THE UK government allowed turkey meat from an area of Hungary affected by bird flu to be imported by Bernard Matthews despite concern that the area was the source of the British outbreak, it was claimed last night.

According to a newspaper report, a consignment of 20 tonnes of turkey was imported last Tuesday from a slaughterhouse in Hungary, three days after the avian flu was confirmed at the Bernard Matthews plant in Suffolk.

Government inspectors knew the meat was being imported but did nothing to halt it, according to the report.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has admitted it had the power to halt such imports but did not use it for fear of retaliation from other countries.

The meat came from a slaughterhouse only 30 miles away from the part of Hungary affected by bird flu. It means the meat - which could have been contaminated with the virus - was taken into the exclusion zone set up around Holton.

The revelation is certain to lead to renewed criticism of the government over the way it handled the outbreak. Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment secretary, said the government was guilty of "extraordinary complacency".

He told the Sunday Times: "It beggars belief that the government could have been so casual about the virus being brought in on imported meat."

It was also claimed last night that a farm less than 20 miles from the epicentre of the Hungarian bird flu outbreak supplied a Bernard Matthews subsidiary there. Hungarian farmers alleged Saga Foods, owned by Bernard Matthews, receive poultry from a farm near to the goose farms hit by the H5N1 virus last month.

The government has promised to investigate the claims, but a spokesman for Bernard Matthews insisted all their paperwork was in place and they abided by regulations.

Despite the ongoing bird-flu crisis, British consumers appeared to be holding their nerve and supermarkets claimed there had been no drop in poultry sales.

Despite an investigation by the Food Standards Agency into whether turkey products on shop shelves could be infected, the big food chains said there had been no significant drop in sales.

A spokeswoman for Asda said the outbreak in Suffolk had made "absolutely no impact" on sales of chicken, turkey or duck.

And while Tesco and Sainsbury said they had both seen small drops in sales, they said this may have been caused by the bad weather.

The supermarkets' claims came as experts played down the risk posed to humans by any infected poultry that had made it into the shops.

The government has warned that a recall might be necessary if the FSA finds it has spread to the food chain.

But Paul Hunter, professor of health production at the University of East Anglia, said: "The reason the FSA will not rule out a product recall has nothing to do with risk to human health.

"The major reason for recalling products would be to prevent the virus re-entering the bird population. If a contaminated product was discarded and eaten by birds there is the potential for this to cause a further outbreak."

Hunter said it was "very unlikely" that food had been contaminated and pointed out that even if it had, the virus would then die after a few days.

It now appears that the message of the low level of risk has been transmitted to shoppers, who are continuing to buy poultry as normal.

The reason for the low level of risk is also due to the fact that the virus does not bind well to the human gut, meaning that even if it was eaten, infection would be unlikely.

Those people who have contracted bird flu across the world are all thought to have caught it by breathing it in, as the primary method of infection is through the lungs.

Health experts say that as a precaution, however, people should ensure they wash their hands before and after handling meat. They also say that poultry should not be washed under a tap as this can produce airborne particles which can then be breathed in.

The FSA has also urged consumers not to eat raw eggs or use raw eggs in dishes which will not be cooked. They say eggs should be cooked until the whites are solid.

Nigel Horrox, the president of the British Veterinary Poultry Association, said the risk from bird flu-contaminated meat was "virtually zero".

He urged that any recall be based on "scientific facts, not political emotion" and that action should be proportionate to the "real risks".

"Scientifically there is no real basis for a product recall. What government wants to do on social, political, legal or commercial grounds is its business, but it should be careful not to set a precedent that it could come to regret," he said.

Bernard Matthews has insisted its products are safe and consumers are not at risk.

If bird flu grips the nation, doctors will need guns​

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article1363825.ece

The NHS will be unable to handle a pandemic, says Dr Andrew Lawson

Towards the end of the film Dr Strangelove, Peter Sellers discusses who will go into the mines to survive. A surreal echo came for myself and colleagues recently when we were in discussions about planning for a bird flu pandemic in the UK as part of an ethics committee.

If a true pandemic of bird flu hits these shores then our notions of what we can expect from the National Health Service will have to change. Some people will have to be denied potentially life-saving treatment: there simply will not be enough beds.

Managing such a pandemic is unimaginable. While it is possible to work out what will happen if a bomb goes off in central London — we can empty intensive care units, mobilise extra staff and stop elective work — what we cannot plan for is 200,000 extra patients who need a life support machine.

Arnie Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, says his state will buy thousands more machines, but who will man them? A gut reaction is to blame the government for underresourcing. It is true that we have a chronic underinvestment in intensive care compared with the United States, Australia or other European countries. In any normal situation such a criticism would be valid, but in a pandemic it becomes a statistical irrelevancy.

Who will decide, and on what criteria, those getting the chance of survival? If you and a friend get bird flu and you both end up in hospital, the estimates are that within 48 hours one of you will need life support. At conservative estimates the need for intensive care will be about 2Å times more than we can provide.

Allocation of such resources will have to be either on a first come first served basis or on an explicitly utilitarian basis of capacity to benefit. This shift from an egalitarian free access to a limited one based on expected outcome represents a profound shift in how we deliver healthcare.

Exclusion criteria have already been drawn up in Canada and the United States and include such contentious issues as restriction based on age or on preexisting disease such as cystic fibrosis or metastatic cancer. Saying “no” to a desperately ill child with cystic fibrosis or to a previously fit 85-year-old is not something we are morally or emotionally prepared for. By an ethical analysis it may be the correct thing to do, but will patients or their relatives be prepared to accept it?

Such arguments may, of course, be purely academic. Assumptions as to what we can do are based on the doctors and nurses, porters and technicians turning up to work. But if we do not have enough masks to protect staff dealing with infected patients, then do the staff have a moral duty to turn up for work and get infected themselves? It may be that they go to work but only once — who will want to return home and potentially infect their own family?

In Victoria, Australia, it was suggested that patients would not go to the GP but to a “flu centre”. The idea that patients would go to where flu is concentrated displays an astounding lack of comprehension of human nature. Similarly, staff will be reluctant to put themselves at risk. HSBC, the banking group, was accused of scaremongering when it announced that perhaps 40% of its staff would not turn up for work in the event of a pandemic, but the NHS may suffer just as badly.

It is not only the risk of infection that may stop staff turning up to work. With such limited access to intensive care, it would be expected that hospitals might not be safe places at all. If I decide not to ventilate someone, his or her relatives might not be too happy. Threats to staff are all too common and many are worried about personal security. Consequently it has been suggested that the decision as to who gets the intensive care bed should be taken away from frontline staff in order to protect them.

At a discussion over how we would react to a biological emergency, where casualties would be decontaminated before we resuscitated them, it was asked who would protect the staff. The answer given was hospital security. Pleasant and helpful as they are, these guys are hardly equipped to deal with an angry mob. One doctor said that the most useful thing staff could be given in such an event was a gun.

Another concern is the legal position of staff who refuse treatment. In the absence of any measures put in place to protect them, one can imagine a raft of legal actions being taken out against them.

If attempting to allocate resources on the basis of capacity to benefit is the right thing to do, then those making the decisions need to be protected, otherwise people will not make the decisions required. Perhaps the only equitable and fair way is to shut the intensive care units and limit treatment to the best we can achieve without artificial ventilation.

Dr Andrew Lawson lectures in medical ethics at Imperial College, London

20-year-old Indonesian woman hospitalized with bird flu​

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-02-10-21-11-50

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- An Indonesian woman was hospitalized with bird flu, a health ministry official said Sunday, adding that the 20-year-old had a history of contact with sick chickens.

"Her condition is bad," Nyoman Kandun said of the victim, who was being treated in Garut Hospital in West Java province.

The H5N1 virus has prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and has caused the deaths of 166 people worldwide, 63 of them in hardest-hit Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

Twenty-one others have been sickened by the disease in the sprawling archipelagic nation, most of them near the capital Jakarta.

Most people killed so far have been infected by domestic fowl and the virus remains very hard for humans to catch. But experts fear it could mutate into a form that easily spreads among humans, sparking a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

JPD,
Thanks for the heads up!

64th Person Dies Of Bird Flu In Indonesia​

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=62809

Article Date: 11 Feb 2007 - 3:00 PST

A 20-year-old woman is the 64th person in Indonesia to die of H5N1 bird flu infection, say Indonesian authorities. The woman, from Garut, West Java, had been in direct physical contact with sick chickens. She died on Sunday, one day after being diagnosed with the H5N1 bird flu virus strain.

Authorities have reported that two of the woman's neighbors also have bird flu like symptoms.

Of the 84 humans who have become infected with bird flu in Indonesia, 64 have died - 76%.

Scientists fear the H5N1 bird flu virus strain will probably mutate and eventually become easily human transmissible. One of the ways it could do this would be to infect a person who is sick with the normal human flu virus. The bird flu virus would have the opportunity to exchange genetic information with the human flu virus and acquire its ability to spread easily from human-to-human.

For the moment it is still very difficult for humans to catch bird flu from birds, it is even harder for a human to infect another human.

Six sick Egyptians test negative for bird flu-WHO​

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=L11823572

CAIRO, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Six Egyptians who were suspected of having the deadly bird flu virus after displaying flu-like symptoms have tested negative for the disease, a World Health Organisation official said on Sunday.

"They are all negative," said John Jabbour, a WHO official in Cairo.

State news agency MENA had reported on Saturday that six Egyptians near the town of Fayoum, where a 17-year-old girl died from bird flu last week, were suspected of having contracted the H5N1 virus. One was reported to be seriously ill.

Egypt has the largest known cluster of human bird flu cases outside of Asia. Some 20 people are known to have contracted the disease in Egypt since the virus first surfaced in Egyptian poultry a year ago. Twelve have died. In January, the World Health Organisation said two people who had died of bird flu in Egypt in December were found to have a strain of the virus which has shown moderate resistance to the frontline anti-viral Tamiflu.

Jabbour has said that strain has not re-appeared, and the version of the virus that killed the 17-year-old from Fayoum was not resistant to Tamiflu. But he said the girl was diagnosed too late for Tamiflu to reverse the course of the disease.

Risk of deadly bird flu in Nigeria, UN official warns​

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070211/hl_afp/healthflunigeria

LAGOS (AFP) - The risk of the H5N1 virus transferring from animals to humans in Nigeria has not increased since a woman died last month in the first fatality in west Africa from bird flu, a UN official has said.
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But Tony Forman, an Australian with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told AFP Sunday: "The risk is higher in countries where populations are not aware of transmission from bird to human."

The situation in densely-populated Nigeria is similar to that in certain Asian countries, Forman said. "The situation is similar to Asia," he told AFP at the end of an mission here.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) this month confirmed the first human death in Nigeria and west Africa due to the H5N1 virus and sent an expert team to implement an emergency plan of action to prevent the virus spreading throughout the country and elsewhere in the region.

The international team has been cooperating closely with Nigerian officials.

The H5N1 strain was first reported in Nigeria a year ago. The country, with a population of some 140 million, has frontiers with the states of Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

It is in mainly in Nigeria, Egypt and Sudan that the disease has so far refused to go away in Africa.

Nigerian authorities last Friday announced a fresh outbreak of avian flu, following an eight-month reprieve, in poultry farms in a fourth northern state, Bauchi.

"In the past one week we culled 5,000 chickens following laboratory confirmation of the existence of the avian flu virus in samples of dead chickens," said Bala Usman Suleiman, Bauchi State agriculture commissioner.

Forman said the likely immediate source of the flu outbreak in Lagos was Onipanua poultry market in the north of the city, "where the family (of the deceased woman) bought a chicken a little before Christmas."

"Much poultry sold and eaten in Lagos comes from outside Lagos. That might pose a problem," Forman said. "The difficulty is: which trader sold the infected bird?"

He praised the prompt response of the Nigerian authorities, saying: "The government has done a good job."

This explained why only one human death had been recorded so far in Africa's most populous country, he said. But he also warned: "There may have been undetected or unreported cases.

Q&A: Bird flu and Hungary​

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6352351.stm

Virus expert Professor John Oxford explains how the bird flu outbreak in Hungary may have spread to the Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk, which had to cull 159,000 turkeys earlier this month.

Did the virus come from Hungary?

There isn't a clear history yet. We still don't know where the outbreak in Hungary came from - there could be a third source. Also, new information keeps coming out. At first we were told that there was no physical connection between the factory in Suffolk and the outbreak in Hungary. Now we know that a huge volume of meat was transported from Hungary to Suffolk.

What's the connection between the outbreak at the goose farm in Szentes in Hungary, to the Bernard Matthews' plant 160 miles away in Sarvar?

It appears that a single abattoir in Hungary was handling both the geese that were infected with H5N1 and the turkeys destined for Suffolk. The abattoir would have been swilled out and disinfected once the geese were killed but it's very easy for the virus to have been passed on to the turkeys. One feather or a single piece of skin the size of a breadcrumb from one of the infected geese can contain 100,000 viruses, which can kill 100,000 birds.

How did the virus get from Hungary to Suffolk?

We need to know how well the abattoir in Hungary was disinfected after the infected geese were slaughtered, whether separate units were used or were they shared? These are all factors that come into it. Once the dead turkeys were packed on to lorries for transportation to England they would have been kept cold, stabilising the virus.

What is bio-security?

The virus spread because of a breakdown in bio-security. That means that in the processing plant in Suffolk the virus was spread from the area handling the dead birds from Hungary to another part of the plant containing live birds. The most likely cause is human contact - a worker who had the virus on their hands, clothing or shoes. It's essential that a worker going from one part of the plant to another showers and has a change of kit. You have to treat the environment in the same way you would an operating theatre in a hospital.

Is human contact the only possible cause of a breakdown in bio-security?

The only other ways the virus could have been spread are from wild birds or rodents getting into the plant - both of which seem unlikely because of the high standard of bio-security.

Has killing the infected turkeys destroyed the virus?

The infected birds have been safely disposed of and the hut where they were kept will have been disinfected with hot water and detergent but you have to get into every nook and cranny, which isn't easy. Time will also help to kill the virus - it could take months rather than weeks to get rid of it and as the weather gets warmer the virus will decay.

What lessons can be learned to prevent future outbreaks?

To break the chain of transmission it's a good idea to ban the import of products from the infected area until the outbreak is under control. It also makes sense to have independent lines in an abattoir for different kinds of birds - geese, turkeys, chicken and so on - and also perhaps for birds for different customers. That's going to be expensive but I would have thought it would be worthwhile protecting a £3 billion industry.

Who's at risk of coming into contact with the virus?

The 50,000 people who work in direct contact with geese, chicken and ducks in the UK. That compares with one billion in south east Asia, so most people here are at minuscule risk of coming into contact with the disease.

Which are the most infectious parts of a bird?

The corpse, insides, feathers and excreta from the bottom and beak can all contain the virus. There are 10 million viruses in just one gramme of droppings. Even if someone flung some droppings into someone's face they are still highly unlikely to get bird flu because there's a huge barrier on its ability to move between birds and humans.

Can you get bird flu from eating turkey?

One hundred percent not. Even if you ate raw turkey you still probably wouldn't be infected, the risk is so minuscule. That's because this is a bird virus that does not like humans but also because most people would cook a turkey and maintain high standards of hygiene - washing their hands and using clean work surfaces.

Bird flu deaths in Indonesia reach 65​

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailtoplatest.asp?fileid=20070211221124&irec=0

JAKARTA (JP): Provincial administrations are being urged to follow Jakarta in banning backyard poultry, as two more bird flu deaths were reported Sunday in Garut regency, West Java.

A 20-year-old woman died at Slamet Hospital in Garut at about 1 a.m., followed by a 9-year old boy at 4:30 p.m.

"Let's use this as a reminder for all of us to keep poultry away from people," the director general of communicable diseases at the Health Ministry, I Nyoman Kandun, told The Jakarta Post .

"Other provincial administrations should follow the Jakarta administration in its effort to keep poultry away from people. Our message is still the same: keep poultry as far away as possible from people and homes," he said.

Kandun said the deep-rooted tradition of people living near their poultry made it difficult for the government to stop the spread of the virus from birds to humans.

"Our biggest concern is still that the virus could mutate into a form where human-to-human transmissions are easy," he said.

Officials have confirmed that the woman who died early Sunday had contact with dead chickens before becoming infected with the H5N1 virus.

Health officials said the woman, who was also suffering from pneumonia, was too sick when she arrived at the hospital for doctors to help her.

West Java Health Agency head Yudi Prayudha said the woman showed the classic bird flu symptoms of difficulty breathing and a high fever.

The 9-year-old boy was referred to Slamet Hospital on Saturday evening. However, his family brought him home at about 3 a.m., before health officials convinced them to return the boy to the hospital later Sunday morning.(Alvin Darlanika Soedarjo/Yuli Tri Suwarni)

More Bird Flu Found in Gyeonggi Province​

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200702/200702120010.html

A new case of the deadly avian influenza was detected in Ansong, Gyeonggi Province on Saturday, the sixth case of bird flu detected in Korea since Nov. 2006. The last outbreak was in Chonan, South Chungcheong Province on Jan. 20. This is the third case of bird flu found in Gyeonggi Province, following outbreaks in Icheon in Dec. 2003 and Yangju in March 2004.

According to the Gyeonggi provincial government, the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service investigated a mass death of chickens that began last Tuesday at a poultry farm owned by a man identified only by his surname Park. The researchers confirmed that the chickens died from avian influenza.

The local authority decided to slaughter 316,000 animals including chickens, ducks and other poultry from 31 farms within a 3-km radius of the outbreak site and 7,000 pigs and other animals from five farms within a 500-meter radius. All 133,000 chickens from Park’s Ansong poultry farm and a further 137,000 chickens at another farm owned by Park in Icheon will be destroyed as well.

The transport of chickens and eggs from 14 farms within a 3- to 10-km radius of the outbreak has been regulated, and 30,000 eggs that were sent to Seoul for sale last Friday from Park's poultry farm are to be destroyed.

A government official said it is unlikely that the Ansong outbreak originated with the Chonan case in January because the incubation period was over 20 days and the outbreaks were more than 50km apart.

“We are investigating the possibility that the virus was spread by migratory birds passing by Chungmichun, a river about 1km from the village,” said the official.

Bird flu kills Java villager​

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_...=38096&sid=12177507&con_type=1&d_str=20070212

Monday, February 12, 2007

A 20-year-old Indonesian woman died of bird flu early Sunday, bringing the number of people killed by the virus in the hardest-hit country to 64.

The victim - identified only as Elis - was from the West Java village of Karangpawitan, where at least four other people also have fallen ill with symptoms of the disease, said Yogi Suprayogi, a spokesman at Slamet Hospital where she was admitted Friday.

"She was in really bad condition when she came here," said Suprayogi, adding Elis apparently had contact with dead chickens a week before she was admitted.

Hundreds of chickens have dropped dead in the village in recent days and officials were heading to the area, 200 kilometers southeast of the capital Jakarta, to test other residents for the disease, he said.

South Korea, meanwhile, has stepped up the culling of poultry and livestock to curb a new bird flu outbreak as the deadly virus spread to a sixth farm despite government efforts to contain it, officials said.

Local authorities plan to cull a total of 309,000 birds, including 133,000 chickens at a farm 90km southeast of Seoul where the latest outbreak was confirmed Saturday.

Officials have slaughtered 2.3 million birds since the country's first case of bird flu in almost three years was confirmed on November 25.

Bird flu has killed 167 people worldwide since late 2003 and there remain fears it may become a much more contagious disease. ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Meat from bird-flu farm 'went abroad'​

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=227432007

RUSSELL JACKSON

POULTRY products from the farm at the centre of the British bird flu outbreak could have been moved out of the restricted area, the government admitted last night.

An exclusion zone has been in place around the Bernard Matthews plant in Holton, Suffolk, since the deadly strain of H5N1 took hold there more than a week ago.

But last night it was claimed lorry loads of meat had been transported to Hungary, the country at the centre of investigations into how the strain came to Britain.

And the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs conceded it could have happened if licensing requirements for movement outside the restricted zone were met.

A spokesman said

all movements to and from the plant were the subject of an ongoing investigation.

Hungary's chief vet, Lajos Bognar, earlier told Channel 4 News meat had left the plant in Holton and arrived at Bernard Matthews' Hungarian plant on Wednesday or Thursday.

"Six trucks arrived last week from the protection zone," Mr Bognar said.

The programme reported that the lorries had left the British plant for Hungary under a special licence issued to Bernard Matthews, and arrived three or four days ago.

But it claims the decision to grant the licence would have been made before it was clear poultry products, rather than wild birds, were the likely source of the outbreak.

Hungarian vets have said they perceive the risk from the processed meat to be low, but are to receive test results today, according to the programme.

It was revealed earlier yesterday that DEFRA had allowed Bernard Matthews to continue importing dead turkeys from Hungary after geese in the country had fallen victim to avian flu.

Bird flu farm cooked meat 'is safe'​

http://icnorthlondononline.icnetwor...bjectid=18610400&siteid=106484-name_page.html

Feb 12 2007



Cooked and processed meat transported from the bird flu-infected Bernard Matthews farm to Hungary is safe, according to experts.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is continuing its investigation into the outbreak in Holton, Suffolk, but officials claim that meat leaving the site is not a risk.

Hungary's chief vet, Lajos Bognar, told Channel 4 News lorries of meat had left Suffolk on Wednesday last week. He added that the meat would be tested, with the results expected on Monday.

But a Defra spokeswoman said there was no risk of cooked meat which has left the Bernard Matthews farm since the H5N1 outbreak being contaminated with bird flu.

"The heating process quickly kills the virus and therefore this meat will be perfectly safe," she said. "Although the farm was closed down and the sheds tested as soon as the outbreak was confirmed, the processing plant continues to work as normal.

"Processed meat delivered from elsewhere in the country may have also left the site before Bernard Matthews stopped transporting last week. But this will also be safe because it will not have been from within the infected zone. It will not have come into contact with any area of contamination."

The spokeswoman said Hungarian vets were testing cooked and processed meat transported from Suffolk but the process was probably being carried out to reassure the public. She added that results on the 18 remaining sheds at the Bernard Matthews plant were clear.

Dr Andrew Wadge, the Food Standards Agency's chief scientist, told BBC News the risk to the public was tiny.

"There has been no evidence of people getting bird flu through food," he said. "There is no real risk for people providing they cook food properly.

"Our assessment is that from a food safety point of view this is not a concern. People should continue to handle poultry as they always did, making sure it is cooked properly. We will be continuing to work to find out how this virus got into the plant. When we know, it will be put in the public domain."

UK bird flu test result due by Tuesday: EU official​

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSBRU00540920070212

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The outcome of tests into whether the lethal strain of H5N1 bird flu found in Britain this month was directly linked to a similar case in Hungary will be known by Tuesday, an EU official said.

"We expect results on whether the UK case is directly linked to Hungary within 24 hours," the EU official said on Monday.

"However, the results cannot determine how the strain of bird flu actually arrived in the UK," the official added.

The case was confirmed in Suffolk, England in early February, following an outbreak of the H5N1 strain in southeast Hungary.