02/20 | H5N1: Human Avian flu pandemic risk increases
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PCViking
Lutefisk Survivor
Human Avian flu pandemic risk increases
Publisher: Keith Hall
Published: 19/02/2006 - 15:42:27 PM
A flu pandemic similar to the 1918 outbreak which killed 50 million people a year could be on its way to the UK following the discovery of the deadly H5N1 strain across the English Channel.
John Oxford, Professor of Virology at Barts, claims the likelihood of a human avian flu pandemic was "high and within a span of, say, 18 months".
"I'm not alone in thinking that because, again, the World Health Organisation has begged 250 governments around the world - most of which have ignored them - to take this view on and prepare for this outbreak.
"Because what we do not want is either a New Orleans situation or a Tsunami situation - that is you could predict something was going to happen but you don't do anything about it to prepare."
The relatively small number of deaths so far do not mean the current outbreak will not pose a major risk insists Prof Oxford.
Back in 1918 the flu pandemic, which killed 50 million people in a year, also came from a bird in France, and started with just 50 deaths. The similarities are of great concern according to the Professor.
"I still personally find it pretty alarming."
"That is the danger with influenza - compared to any other virus I know - that it can suddenly transform itself, reinvent itself and spread around the world."
Prof Oxford maintained "rather more scientific nations than our own" like Holland can calculate when wild birds were migrating over them and pulled domestic poultry inside.
"That is the sort of thing you can do, in other words biosecurity," he said.
"The reason we are not doing it here, it just escapes me, quite frankly."
The Government have now acknowledged the increased risk, and Ben Bradshaw, the junior minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has today warned the public and the poultry industry to remain vigilant.
Poultry keepers have been urged to house birds indoors if needed, and to report suspicious deaths and take bio-security measures following confirmation that a dead bird near Lyon had the virus.
Mr Bradshaw says the Government are taking increased measures, including extra surveillance within the last 24 hours.
He told GMTV's The Sunday Programme: "It's not inevitable but it is clear, obviously, that it's more likely than it was when it was further away.
"The veterinary advice is the risk of imminent infection in the UK is still low but we must remain vigilant."
He added: "We are appealing to poultry keepers to be ready to house their birds should such an order be issued, which would happen if there were an outbreak to be found in this country."
He said that where the disease was discovered in France and Germany was not on migratory flight paths that carried on to the UK, but poultry keepers should monitor their flocks and report suspicious deaths.
"The most important thing is to identify an outbreak quickly," he added.
Defence Secretary John Reid said the Government had taken every precaution necessary.
"The difficulty if bird flu ever transfers to humans - and it hasn't yet so don't let's panic - if it does, up until the point that it does and mixes with human flu it isn't possible to have a vaccine in advance," he told BBC1's Sunday AM.
"It isn't possible to have a vaccine in advance. The most you can do is prepare and have a type of pill you take which diminishes the symptoms after it arrives.
"But it hasn't arrived. Don't let's panic. And I'm sure that the Government has got all necessary measures there."
The announcement in France comes as the disease spread throughout Europe.
In Austria, authorities are ordering all poultry to be kept indoors following strong indications that a wild swan found dead in the capital Vienna would test positive for H5N1.
Germany announced another 28 wild birds had been found to have the deadly strain of bird flu, with hundreds more being tested.
Greece, Italy and Slovenia have also notified outbreaks, and results are awaited on samples from Austria and Hungary sent to the EU's testing laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey.
Outside Europe, India announced its first cases of H5N1 in chickens after 30,000 birds died in the past two weeks in Navapur, Maharashtra and some tested positive for the disease.
Professor Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council, said bird flu in Britain was not "inevitable".
However, he said: "The risk assessment suggests that certainly the probability is a little higher than we thought a few weeks ago."
Prof Blakemore told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme there was "absolutely no evidence" that the disease can be contracted by eating infected animals.
"What seems to be required at the moment for these rare human cases seems to be very intimate, close contact between humans and infected chickens," he said.
That meant there was a potential risk to those handling poultry, Prof Blakemore said.
"That would be risk if the infection were to spread to chickens," he said.
Shadow chancellor George Osborne called for a contingency exercise to test Britain's defences to be brought forward from April.
"Given Bird Flu has been discovered in France, on our border, I think and the Conservative Party argues, this should be brought forward," he told BBC1's Politics Show.
"We should test our systems now.
"The other point I make is there needs to be much more public information here.
"There has been some communication with large holders of poultry.
"But there are many people who have small numbers of chickens and things at home.
"A better public information campaign to say this is exactly what is going to happen if we have a Bird Flu case in Britain I think is called for now."
Dr Freda Scott-Park, of the British Veterinary Association, told BBC Radio 4's World This Weekend that "significant amounts of surveillance" were already under way.
"With this new and renewed threat, a bird affected, a duck infected in France, we are going to push the surveillance levels of wild birds up again," she said.
"We are going to have to talk to people on a daily, even an hourly basis, just to see how the situation develops."
Shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said the public needed to know the lessons of Foot and Mouth had been learned.
"If I were in the Government's shoes I'd have armies of advisers and vets and scientists providing advice on what to do and it is not for me to second-guess their judgment," he said.
"What I think is pressing at the moment is a perceived lack of awareness in the public and amongst poultry owners themselves about what might be required were there to be an outbreak.
"And I think the key thing we are looking for the Government to do at the moment is to put right that public information deficit."
Mr Ainsworth added: "The fact is that we are talking about a Government department that has less than a glowing track-record in dealing with outbreaks of animal disease.
"But let's hope that is behind us and that now we have some really clear contingency plans in place and that means knowing in advance, that means being prepared.
"And I think that is where the problem is at the moment. There is a lot of confusion, for example, ministers talk about people bringing birds in doors.
"Well if anyone thinks that taking their chickens into their home is going to be the right thing to do they are sadly mistaken."
Animal welfare minister Ben Bradshaw said there had been a contingency plan in place for three and a half years that had been approved by the Tories and the NFU.
"We are satisfied we have got a good place. We think we have learned the lessons of previous animal disease outbreaks," he told the World This Weekend.
Mr Bradshaw said poultry would only be ordered inside once the disease reached this country.
However, there will be an "urgent review" of arrangements if wild birds are found with the disease on a migratory route crossing Britain.
"Neither of those two conditions is yet met. We don't have an outbreak in wild birds in this country, we don't have an outbreak on a migratory route," he said.
"The secret to this is to identify it quickly, to contain it in one place and then to eradicate it.
"In fact, both the Dutch and the Germans several months ago, back in the early autumn, brought all their birds indoors - we thought rather precipitously - and then a few weeks later had to let them out again.
"Now that caused a great deal of expense, unnecessarily, and a great deal of inconvenience to their industry."
"We think we have got a good plan, it is based on a scientific risk assessment, we are keeping the farmers and the poultry keepers informed and we are also asking the public for help."
Mr Bradshaw added: "We are confident. We aren't complacent but we think we have got a good plan, we think the poultry industry are very well prepared."
http://www.24dash.com/content/news/viewNews.php?navID=47&newsID=3243
vik
Bird flu spreads, India tests dozens of people
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\02\20\story_20-2-2006_pg4_19
MUMBAI: India said it was testing dozens of people for bird flu on Sunday.
The Indian government said on Sunday that earlier fears of the country’s first human victim were unfounded, after ‘preliminary’ tests on a dead farmer showed he was not affected. “Preliminary investigations by the rapid response teams at Navapur indicate that this patient had no exposure to poultry,” a federal health ministry statement said.
Earlier, the top administrator of Surat district in India’s western Gujarat state and the state’s health minister had told Reuters that a poultry farmer had died of “suspected bird flu”.
“A poultry farm owner died on Friday in Surat district. Local tests have confirmed bird flu but we have sent samples to the national labouratory. A final report is awaited,” Vatsala Vasudev, the top administrator of Surat, told Reuters. “There are, however, no reports of any human cases of avian influenza,” the government statement said.
The statement said as of Saturday, there were six cases of “upper respiratory tract infection with mild fever who have history of poultry deaths in their backyard farms” from Navapur. It added that “none of these cases have any pneumonia.” Avian influenza has flared anew in recent weeks, spreading among birds in Europe and parts of Africa, and prompting authorities to impose bans on the poultry trade, introduce mass culling and vaccinate poultry flocks.
In India, officials launched an emergency campaign to try to contain the virus, which experts fear might mutate to allow it to pass between people, potentially triggering a pandemic. Another official said blood samples of 30 people from bird flu-hit Nandurbar district in western Maharashtra state had been sent for testing for the H5N1 virus, a top official told Reuters.
“All these people were showing flu-like symptoms and we have sent their blood and sputum samples for testing for bird flu,” said Vijay Satbir Singh, the state’s top health official, said.
India, the world’s second most populous nation and a major poultry producer, reported its first bird flu cases in poultry on Saturday, after 50,000 birds died in Maharashtra. Bird flu is also threatening livelihoods by slashing demand for poultry in Europe, Nigeria and parts of India. reuters
Europe mobilizes as bird flu continues to spread
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/20/content_4202645.htm
BEIJING, Feb. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- European countries have stepped up their efforts to fight bird flu as the deadly disease continued its advance across the continent on Sunday.
Veterinarians and soldiers were sent to check dead birds, cordon off affected areas and ensure that vehicles were not carrying fowl. Several countries have ordered all raised fowl kept indoors to avoid contact with migratory birds.
In Paris, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said France was taking all necessary steps to prevent the spread of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
He described the strain, detected in a wild duck found dead in the central-eastern Ain Department, as an isolated case, saying no poultry or humans had been affected.
The French government has so far pledged 6 million euros (7 million U.S. dollars) to help soften the economic blow for farmers, and has already ordered all poultry and tame birds to be kept indoors to prevent possible contamination from wild fowl.
Also on Sunday, the German army deployed a special unit on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, where over 40 cases of H5N1 have been found, to intensify the fight against bird flu.
Defense officials said they had dispatched a 19-member unit specializing in decontamination to help reduce the spread of the virus.
The so-called ABC unit has already set up their equipment and planned to start disinfecting both vehicles and people on the island, which was declared a "protected zone," according to German news agency DPA.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to the island on Sunday, not as the leader of the nation, but as the parliamentary representative of the region which forms part of her electorate.
In Rome, the Italian Health Ministry said a wild duck found dead in central Italy had been confirmed to be carrying the lethal H5N1 strain, raising to 16 the total number of cases found in the country.
Italy reported its first cases of bird flu last week when eight wild swans found in the southern regions of Puglia, Calabria and Sicily tested positive for the virus.
The Italian government has begun to carry out a series of precautionary measures, including the creation of a 3-km high-risk protective zone around each outbreak area, and a surveillance zone of an additional 7 km.
Meanwhile, Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported that the British government is deeply concerned at the prospect of bird flu reaching the country.
The government admitted that it is increasingly likely that bird flu will arrive in Britain, and the National Farmers' Union has told members to prepare to take poultry indoors at short notice, said the newspaper.
The British government has established plans for exclusion zones if any wild bird is found to be infected with H5N1. If any poultry was found to be infected the entire flock would face being culled.
The government is still considering whether to vaccinate the country's entire stock of 150 million poultry for fear that all poultry export might be banned as a result.
In Romania, where H5N1 was detected in two villages last week, authorities completed a cull of about 22,000 domestic birds in the village of Topraisar. Preliminary tests showed an H5 subtype of the bird flu virus in birds in two more villages near the Black Sea.
The Romanian authorities have warned that the country could see human cases of the disease because it has a large number of small household farms in poor rural areas without good sanitation.
Elsewhere, Austria ordered all poultry and fowl kept indoors starting at midnight Saturday, after signs that a wild swan found dead in Vienna had been infected with H5N1, health officials said.
Serbia said veterinary teams would start traveling around the country on Monday to make sure that farmers were obeying orders to keep the poultry inside. Enditem
The Flying Dutchman
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<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Bird flu scare crashes chicken prices by 60%</font>
Monday February 20 2006 09:51 IST
<A href="http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEB20060219232930&Page=B&Title=Business&Topic=0&">www.newindpress.com</a></center>
PUNE: A day after bird flu cases were reported from Nandurbar and Dhule districts, sale of chicken and poultry products in the city witnessed a sharp drop of 60-70 per cent.
Though most of the traders refused to comment on the decline, some pointed out that customers stayed away from poultry products as they were waiting for a clear picture to emerge on the situation.</b>
Small time poultry farm owners are the worst-affected as the rates dropped from Rs 35 per kg to Rs 28 per kg. ‘‘Traders did not pick up our stock on Saturday night as they feared that rates would crash more. Farmers are facing a huge loss now as people are not willing to buy,’’ Ganesh Moze, who runs a chicken farm in Lohegaon, said. Traders and sellers spoke of a conspiracy and claimed that it was done by the multinational companies to create a scare to sell their flu vaccines. ‘‘They have invested a lot of money into their medicines and sell it for over Rs 1,000. This is a way of selling their product,’’ a shopkeeper said.
Market players also feel that the scare is aimed at discrediting the Indian poultry industry which is making its mark in the export market. ‘‘It is a highly competitive market and these rumours are aimed at hurting the Rs 32,000-crore Indian market. The farmers will suffer the most,’’ Sripad R. Maheshkar, director of United Farming Corporation, a chicken feed company said. He added that it would take at least two months for the rates to get back to normal.
Some analysts say that foreign investment in Indian stocks could be hit in the short term. ‘‘Investors are looking at India carefully and avian flu is a risk,’’ said Abheek Barua, chief economist ABN AMRO Bank.
Meanwhile,industry body National Egg Co-ordination Committee (NECC) said, independent tests conducted by them at two labs had confirmed that the birds at Navapur in Nandurbar district were affected by Ranikhet disease.
‘‘The NECC strongly refutes the reports of bird flu and would like to assure the farmers and the public that there is no bird flu in India and there is no reason for any panic,’’ NECC chairperson Anuradha Desai said.
‘‘The farmers in Nandurbar were supposed to sell off their bird stock after 72 weeks, but the birds were kept for 90 weeks. This threatened their immunity levels and the older flock has been affected,’’ Desai told this website's newspaper.
<B><font size=+1 color=red><center>Bird flu scare crashes chicken prices by 60%</font>
Monday February 20 2006 09:51 IST
<A href="http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEB20060219232930&Page=B&Title=Business&Topic=0&">www.newindpress.com</a></center>
PUNE: A day after bird flu cases were reported from Nandurbar and Dhule districts, sale of chicken and poultry products in the city witnessed a sharp drop of 60-70 per cent.
Though most of the traders refused to comment on the decline, some pointed out that customers stayed away from poultry products as they were waiting for a clear picture to emerge on the situation.</b>
Small time poultry farm owners are the worst-affected as the rates dropped from Rs 35 per kg to Rs 28 per kg. ‘‘Traders did not pick up our stock on Saturday night as they feared that rates would crash more. Farmers are facing a huge loss now as people are not willing to buy,’’ Ganesh Moze, who runs a chicken farm in Lohegaon, said. Traders and sellers spoke of a conspiracy and claimed that it was done by the multinational companies to create a scare to sell their flu vaccines. ‘‘They have invested a lot of money into their medicines and sell it for over Rs 1,000. This is a way of selling their product,’’ a shopkeeper said.
Market players also feel that the scare is aimed at discrediting the Indian poultry industry which is making its mark in the export market. ‘‘It is a highly competitive market and these rumours are aimed at hurting the Rs 32,000-crore Indian market. The farmers will suffer the most,’’ Sripad R. Maheshkar, director of United Farming Corporation, a chicken feed company said. He added that it would take at least two months for the rates to get back to normal.
Some analysts say that foreign investment in Indian stocks could be hit in the short term. ‘‘Investors are looking at India carefully and avian flu is a risk,’’ said Abheek Barua, chief economist ABN AMRO Bank.
Meanwhile,industry body National Egg Co-ordination Committee (NECC) said, independent tests conducted by them at two labs had confirmed that the birds at Navapur in Nandurbar district were affected by Ranikhet disease.
‘‘The NECC strongly refutes the reports of bird flu and would like to assure the farmers and the public that there is no bird flu in India and there is no reason for any panic,’’ NECC chairperson Anuradha Desai said.
‘‘The farmers in Nandurbar were supposed to sell off their bird stock after 72 weeks, but the birds were kept for 90 weeks. This threatened their immunity levels and the older flock has been affected,’’ Desai told this website's newspaper.
The Flying Dutchman
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<B><font size=+1 color=brown><center>Battle against bird flu intensifies</font>
By: PTI
February 19, 2006
<A href="http://web.mid-day.com/news/nation/2006/february/131272.htm">web-midday.com</a></center>
Mumbai/New Delhi: A day after the country reported its first outbreak of bird flu among poultry, health officials today carried out mass culling and vaccination of chickens, and the Centre asked states to intensify surveillance even as a farmer died of suspected avian flu in Gujarat.
Two more persons, a mother and her son, were hospitalised in Nandurbar district in Maharashtra, where the dreaded bird flu first surfaced. </b>
It was being ascertained whether they were suffering from the avian flu, officials said. Eight people were admitted to hospital yesterday with symptoms of the disease.
Hailing from Nandurbar district, a 27-year-old poultry farmer, admitted to a Surat hospital in Gujarat, died on Friday, district collector of Surat Vatsala Vasudev said.
"At this juncture, we can only suspect the cause of his death could be bird flu. We can confirm only after his blood report comes from the laboratory."
Animal Husbandry commissioner S K Bandhyopadhya said in New Delhi that no case of avian influenza in human beings had been reported so far, adding the situation was being closely monitored.
"There is no need to panic and the situation is under control. We have asked the Maharashtra government to intensify vaccination efforts."
Wearing protective gloves and masks, health officials in Maharashtra began culling over eight lakh chickens and vaccinating another two lakh to stop the spread of the disease.
Of the 12 to 13 lakh birds in Nandurbar district, nearly 2.5 lakh had been culled since last night, official sources said.
In an unrelated incident, nearly 1,000 chickens died yesterday evening at a poultry farm in Uttar Pradesh's Etawah district due to suspected fungal infection.
"There is no indication of bird flu and fungul infection appears to be cause of the death," district veterinary officer O P Singh told PTI.
Maharashtra Public Health Minister Vimal Mundada said the health department officials were conducting a house-to-house survey to find out if anybody was affected by the disease.
Twenty medical teams had been assigned this task, she said.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said a committee, comprising the cabinet secretary and other Union secretaries were constantly monitoring the situation in Maharashtra.
He told reporters in New Delhi that the National Disaster Management had also swung into action, adding, "I am confident we will succeed in containing the situation."
<B><font size=+1 color=brown><center>Battle against bird flu intensifies</font>
By: PTI
February 19, 2006
<A href="http://web.mid-day.com/news/nation/2006/february/131272.htm">web-midday.com</a></center>
Mumbai/New Delhi: A day after the country reported its first outbreak of bird flu among poultry, health officials today carried out mass culling and vaccination of chickens, and the Centre asked states to intensify surveillance even as a farmer died of suspected avian flu in Gujarat.
Two more persons, a mother and her son, were hospitalised in Nandurbar district in Maharashtra, where the dreaded bird flu first surfaced. </b>
It was being ascertained whether they were suffering from the avian flu, officials said. Eight people were admitted to hospital yesterday with symptoms of the disease.
Hailing from Nandurbar district, a 27-year-old poultry farmer, admitted to a Surat hospital in Gujarat, died on Friday, district collector of Surat Vatsala Vasudev said.
"At this juncture, we can only suspect the cause of his death could be bird flu. We can confirm only after his blood report comes from the laboratory."
Animal Husbandry commissioner S K Bandhyopadhya said in New Delhi that no case of avian influenza in human beings had been reported so far, adding the situation was being closely monitored.
"There is no need to panic and the situation is under control. We have asked the Maharashtra government to intensify vaccination efforts."
Wearing protective gloves and masks, health officials in Maharashtra began culling over eight lakh chickens and vaccinating another two lakh to stop the spread of the disease.
Of the 12 to 13 lakh birds in Nandurbar district, nearly 2.5 lakh had been culled since last night, official sources said.
In an unrelated incident, nearly 1,000 chickens died yesterday evening at a poultry farm in Uttar Pradesh's Etawah district due to suspected fungal infection.
"There is no indication of bird flu and fungul infection appears to be cause of the death," district veterinary officer O P Singh told PTI.
Maharashtra Public Health Minister Vimal Mundada said the health department officials were conducting a house-to-house survey to find out if anybody was affected by the disease.
Twenty medical teams had been assigned this task, she said.
Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil said a committee, comprising the cabinet secretary and other Union secretaries were constantly monitoring the situation in Maharashtra.
He told reporters in New Delhi that the National Disaster Management had also swung into action, adding, "I am confident we will succeed in containing the situation."
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
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<B><center>[February 19, 2006]
<font size=+1 color=green>Help, before fear takes wing</font>
<A href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-help-before-fear-takes-wing-/2006/02/19/1386754.htm">www.tmcnet.com</a></center>
(Indian Express Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Loss to life from a disease is typically computed on the basis of mortality rates. By that reckoning avian influenza, with rates up to 90-100 per cent, would be as deadly as it gets, right? Not quite. For poultry farmers across the world, appearance of the H5N1 strain of bird flu signals damages far in excess of these estimates. </b>
Take the first intimations after laboratory results confirmed the presence of the virus in samples of dead birds from Nandurbar district in northern Maharashtra. Over the past week 40,000 chickens in the area are believed to have died. In the first hours after the confirmed debut of avian influenza in the country, contingency plans to kill 8 lakh additional birds within 3 km of the affected poultry farms were immediately set into operation.
Ever since this virulent strain of bird flu appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, more than 150 million birds have been culled. The week gone by could rapidly kick up that count, as the H5N1 virus turned up in 16 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Preventing the spread of the virus - from one region to another, and significantly from one country to another - demands prompt disclosure about possible outbreaks. And the accompanying fear of human manifestations of avian flu also recommends surveillance of persons who could have been in sustained contact with the diseased birds. These, remember, are birds that may not really have been sick. But they must be culled. Because among domesticated birds, the virus is so contagious that the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fears that the disease can realise a mortality rate of 90-100 per cent within 48 hours.
And these, alas, are human beings who may not have been touched by the virus. But they must be sequestered out of their busy lives for observation. Because the persons carrying the virus of could pass it on - and here about this virus whose transformations are so little known, administrators must deal with possibilities, not actual experience - before they themselves show symptoms of the influenza. Beyond the race to stockpile anti-viral drugs like Tamiflu and hurry research on vaccines, avian flu is already confronting us with questions of liberty and incentives. H5N1 is fast attaining all the attributes of a pathogen that can set off a pandemic - by some speculation, even a pandemic of the order of the 1918 bout.
Then, the mortality rate of less than 3 per cent, but given its wide spread, anywhere between 20 and 50 million died. Extrapolating from those numbers has, in fact, become a regular-and immensely alarmist-part of stocktaking to assess preparedness to tackle a possibly imminent pandemic. But for questions of quarantines and transparency, one need return to the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) three years ago. Then, Chinese authorities came in for stringent criticism for suppressing the news of a deadly and highly contagious pneumonia that first appeared in Guangdong district.
It was the quick spread of the virus, first to Hong Kong and to Laos and Canada, that highlighted the dangers of not isolating a new, unknown illness fast enough. In the end, SARS was conquered. The WHO's final tally put the total number of infections at 8,437 and deaths at 813. Even so, the curtailed travel of those three-four months in parts of Southeast Asia put the losses at $60 billion. But the episode did bring China further criticism as it went about closing down its wildlife markets. The World Health Organisation argued that the compulsory quarantines then enforced in China were "victimising" people. How punishing could quarantines be in this brush with bird flu? The CDC reports that in cases of human infection, avian influenza has still not known to be transmitted beyond one person. But it notes a nagging fear:
"The virus - if given enough opportunities - will change into a form that is highly infectious for humans and spread easily from person to person." That is: in seeking to starve the virus of carriers the aim is not simply to limit the incidence of the illness. It is, even more importantly, aimed at depriving the virus of chances of changing enough to leap beyond that current one-person barrier. In that case, all the gloomy projections would swing into reality. So normal hesitations against quarantines can be quelled.
The alternative is much too dire. In case of H5N1 virus, which recognises no immigration checks and can be borne by migratory birds, failure to take adequate precautions in one part of the world can wreak damage all around. So just as local governments are heeding that logic to compensate farmers whose poultry is being sacrificed in preventive measures, a global graciousness would be in order. Regions, countries and industries affected must be compensated and assisted. It would be ethical. And it'd be smart.
<B><center>[February 19, 2006]
<font size=+1 color=green>Help, before fear takes wing</font>
<A href="http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-help-before-fear-takes-wing-/2006/02/19/1386754.htm">www.tmcnet.com</a></center>
(Indian Express Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Loss to life from a disease is typically computed on the basis of mortality rates. By that reckoning avian influenza, with rates up to 90-100 per cent, would be as deadly as it gets, right? Not quite. For poultry farmers across the world, appearance of the H5N1 strain of bird flu signals damages far in excess of these estimates. </b>
Take the first intimations after laboratory results confirmed the presence of the virus in samples of dead birds from Nandurbar district in northern Maharashtra. Over the past week 40,000 chickens in the area are believed to have died. In the first hours after the confirmed debut of avian influenza in the country, contingency plans to kill 8 lakh additional birds within 3 km of the affected poultry farms were immediately set into operation.
Ever since this virulent strain of bird flu appeared in Hong Kong in 1997, more than 150 million birds have been culled. The week gone by could rapidly kick up that count, as the H5N1 virus turned up in 16 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Preventing the spread of the virus - from one region to another, and significantly from one country to another - demands prompt disclosure about possible outbreaks. And the accompanying fear of human manifestations of avian flu also recommends surveillance of persons who could have been in sustained contact with the diseased birds. These, remember, are birds that may not really have been sick. But they must be culled. Because among domesticated birds, the virus is so contagious that the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fears that the disease can realise a mortality rate of 90-100 per cent within 48 hours.
And these, alas, are human beings who may not have been touched by the virus. But they must be sequestered out of their busy lives for observation. Because the persons carrying the virus of could pass it on - and here about this virus whose transformations are so little known, administrators must deal with possibilities, not actual experience - before they themselves show symptoms of the influenza. Beyond the race to stockpile anti-viral drugs like Tamiflu and hurry research on vaccines, avian flu is already confronting us with questions of liberty and incentives. H5N1 is fast attaining all the attributes of a pathogen that can set off a pandemic - by some speculation, even a pandemic of the order of the 1918 bout.
Then, the mortality rate of less than 3 per cent, but given its wide spread, anywhere between 20 and 50 million died. Extrapolating from those numbers has, in fact, become a regular-and immensely alarmist-part of stocktaking to assess preparedness to tackle a possibly imminent pandemic. But for questions of quarantines and transparency, one need return to the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) three years ago. Then, Chinese authorities came in for stringent criticism for suppressing the news of a deadly and highly contagious pneumonia that first appeared in Guangdong district.
It was the quick spread of the virus, first to Hong Kong and to Laos and Canada, that highlighted the dangers of not isolating a new, unknown illness fast enough. In the end, SARS was conquered. The WHO's final tally put the total number of infections at 8,437 and deaths at 813. Even so, the curtailed travel of those three-four months in parts of Southeast Asia put the losses at $60 billion. But the episode did bring China further criticism as it went about closing down its wildlife markets. The World Health Organisation argued that the compulsory quarantines then enforced in China were "victimising" people. How punishing could quarantines be in this brush with bird flu? The CDC reports that in cases of human infection, avian influenza has still not known to be transmitted beyond one person. But it notes a nagging fear:
"The virus - if given enough opportunities - will change into a form that is highly infectious for humans and spread easily from person to person." That is: in seeking to starve the virus of carriers the aim is not simply to limit the incidence of the illness. It is, even more importantly, aimed at depriving the virus of chances of changing enough to leap beyond that current one-person barrier. In that case, all the gloomy projections would swing into reality. So normal hesitations against quarantines can be quelled.
The alternative is much too dire. In case of H5N1 virus, which recognises no immigration checks and can be borne by migratory birds, failure to take adequate precautions in one part of the world can wreak damage all around. So just as local governments are heeding that logic to compensate farmers whose poultry is being sacrificed in preventive measures, a global graciousness would be in order. Regions, countries and industries affected must be compensated and assisted. It would be ethical. And it'd be smart.
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
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<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Bird flu spreads across Egypt</font>
Published: 20-FEB-06
<A href="http://www.businessinafrica.net/news_in_brief/all/734294.htm">www.businessinafrica.net</a></center>
CAIRO - Poultry tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus in several governorates across Egypt despite the government's efforts to contain the spread of bird flu, the authorities say.
Since the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza was first detected in three governorates on Thursday, it was also reported in at least six others. </b>
"In most cases, the infected animals came from domestic farms counting some 30 birds. They were not industrial farms," said an official from the Supreme national committee to combat bird flu.
He said that in one case however, an entire flock of 10,000 thousand was slaughtered after one dead bird tested positive in the governorate of Qalubia, which is home to the country's poultry stock exchange.
The official also said that between 2,000 and 3,000 Egyptians presenting fever symptoms had undergone medical examination but stressed that all tests had been negative so far.
Most of the infected animals came from domestic farmyards, including in Cairo, and Egypt has embarked on an awareness campaign in a bid to put an end to widespread rooftop and backyard poultry rearing.
According to experts, animals in rooftop farmyards are more easily infected by migratory birds and are not subjected to veterinary control.
The domestic setting also heightens the risk of transmission to humans.
"Such farms are theoretically banned. They have been tolerated for a long time but we are now going to deploy more efforts to enforce the law," the official said.
The H5N1 strain has claimed at least 90 lives, mostly of Asians, since late 2003. It has now spread to Africa and Europe.
Experts fear the virus could mutate into a strain that could be transmitted easily among humans, circumstances that could cause a global pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Sapa-AFP
<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Bird flu spreads across Egypt</font>
Published: 20-FEB-06
<A href="http://www.businessinafrica.net/news_in_brief/all/734294.htm">www.businessinafrica.net</a></center>
CAIRO - Poultry tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus in several governorates across Egypt despite the government's efforts to contain the spread of bird flu, the authorities say.
Since the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza was first detected in three governorates on Thursday, it was also reported in at least six others. </b>
"In most cases, the infected animals came from domestic farms counting some 30 birds. They were not industrial farms," said an official from the Supreme national committee to combat bird flu.
He said that in one case however, an entire flock of 10,000 thousand was slaughtered after one dead bird tested positive in the governorate of Qalubia, which is home to the country's poultry stock exchange.
The official also said that between 2,000 and 3,000 Egyptians presenting fever symptoms had undergone medical examination but stressed that all tests had been negative so far.
Most of the infected animals came from domestic farmyards, including in Cairo, and Egypt has embarked on an awareness campaign in a bid to put an end to widespread rooftop and backyard poultry rearing.
According to experts, animals in rooftop farmyards are more easily infected by migratory birds and are not subjected to veterinary control.
The domestic setting also heightens the risk of transmission to humans.
"Such farms are theoretically banned. They have been tolerated for a long time but we are now going to deploy more efforts to enforce the law," the official said.
The H5N1 strain has claimed at least 90 lives, mostly of Asians, since late 2003. It has now spread to Africa and Europe.
Experts fear the virus could mutate into a strain that could be transmitted easily among humans, circumstances that could cause a global pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Sapa-AFP
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><center>UK alert as bird flu death confirmed
<font size=+1 color=purple>Wild duck found near Lyons had H5N1 virus</font>
Luke Harding in Berlin and Juliette Jowit in London
Sunday February 19, 2006
<A href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1713195,00.html">The Observer.co.uk</a></center>
The first bird flu death in France was confirmed last night, as pressure grew from EU leaders for Britain to take more drastic measures against the disease. Officials said the death of a wild duck near Lyons 'increased the likelihood' that the disease would reach this country.</b>
Germany, France and Holland are among the countries that want tougher measures across all member countries to prevent domestic poultry being infected by migrations of wild birds.
Medical experts last night confirmed that the wild duck was carrying the H5N1 virus. Greece, Italy, Slovenia and Germany have found the virus in birds, while suspected samples from Austria and Hungary are being tested at a special laboratory near Weybridge, Surrey. Panic over the discoveries has led to chicken sales collapsing across the continent, prompting the UK's National Poultry Board to issue a statement telling consumers its meat is 'perfectly safe'.
Eight people are awaiting test results for the H5N1 virus in the Maharashtra area of India, while four more - including three children - are under observation.
At a meeting in Brussels tomorrow, Germany's agriculture minister Horst Seehofer is likely to call for measures already imposed in Germany, including accelerating a ban on keeping poultry outdoors, to be extended across the EU. France and Holland are also calling for mass vaccinations of poultry flocks to stop the spread of the disease. They are likely to press Britain and other countries to follow suit. 'Bird flu can only be fought on an international level,' Seehofer said.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said yesterday that despite the case in France, it had not changed its policy that more drastic measures will only be implemented if a special advisory group of experts decides the risk is high enough to make the expense and disruption necessary. France is Europe's biggest poultry producer and the continent's crossroads for migratory birds.
'This is a new development which increases the likelihood that H5N1 may be found in the UK,' said a statement. 'However, we believe the precautionary measures we have in place remain sufficient and appropriate for the time being.'
About 3,500 birds have been tested in Britain since October, but none has so far been found to carry the virus, said Fred Landeg, Defra's deputy chief veterinary officer. A hotline to report bird deaths is taking 340 calls a day.
Britain's contingency measures include exclusion zones around sites where infected birds are found, a ban on all movement of poultry, mass vaccinations and an order to put all poultry flocks under cover.
'In different parts of Europe people have been responding in different ways,' said a department spokesman. 'My understanding is that our contingency plan is very similar to what's in everybody's contingency plan.'
The concern about vaccinations is they take three to five weeks to give immunity, risk putting handlers in danger and could lead to a worldwide ban on European poultry. The EU has reassured organic farmers they would not lose their lucrative status if they move birds indoors, as long as there is reasonable space.
More than 10,000 people have registered chicken flocks of 50 birds or more with Defra, and the industry is worth £1.3bn a year to farmers.
Bird flu has killed 91 people in Asia and Turkey since 2003, according to the World Health Organisation. Most victims were infected after handling sick birds, but scientists fear H5N1 could mutate and pass between humans.
<B><center>UK alert as bird flu death confirmed
<font size=+1 color=purple>Wild duck found near Lyons had H5N1 virus</font>
Luke Harding in Berlin and Juliette Jowit in London
Sunday February 19, 2006
<A href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1713195,00.html">The Observer.co.uk</a></center>
The first bird flu death in France was confirmed last night, as pressure grew from EU leaders for Britain to take more drastic measures against the disease. Officials said the death of a wild duck near Lyons 'increased the likelihood' that the disease would reach this country.</b>
Germany, France and Holland are among the countries that want tougher measures across all member countries to prevent domestic poultry being infected by migrations of wild birds.
Medical experts last night confirmed that the wild duck was carrying the H5N1 virus. Greece, Italy, Slovenia and Germany have found the virus in birds, while suspected samples from Austria and Hungary are being tested at a special laboratory near Weybridge, Surrey. Panic over the discoveries has led to chicken sales collapsing across the continent, prompting the UK's National Poultry Board to issue a statement telling consumers its meat is 'perfectly safe'.
Eight people are awaiting test results for the H5N1 virus in the Maharashtra area of India, while four more - including three children - are under observation.
At a meeting in Brussels tomorrow, Germany's agriculture minister Horst Seehofer is likely to call for measures already imposed in Germany, including accelerating a ban on keeping poultry outdoors, to be extended across the EU. France and Holland are also calling for mass vaccinations of poultry flocks to stop the spread of the disease. They are likely to press Britain and other countries to follow suit. 'Bird flu can only be fought on an international level,' Seehofer said.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said yesterday that despite the case in France, it had not changed its policy that more drastic measures will only be implemented if a special advisory group of experts decides the risk is high enough to make the expense and disruption necessary. France is Europe's biggest poultry producer and the continent's crossroads for migratory birds.
'This is a new development which increases the likelihood that H5N1 may be found in the UK,' said a statement. 'However, we believe the precautionary measures we have in place remain sufficient and appropriate for the time being.'
About 3,500 birds have been tested in Britain since October, but none has so far been found to carry the virus, said Fred Landeg, Defra's deputy chief veterinary officer. A hotline to report bird deaths is taking 340 calls a day.
Britain's contingency measures include exclusion zones around sites where infected birds are found, a ban on all movement of poultry, mass vaccinations and an order to put all poultry flocks under cover.
'In different parts of Europe people have been responding in different ways,' said a department spokesman. 'My understanding is that our contingency plan is very similar to what's in everybody's contingency plan.'
The concern about vaccinations is they take three to five weeks to give immunity, risk putting handlers in danger and could lead to a worldwide ban on European poultry. The EU has reassured organic farmers they would not lose their lucrative status if they move birds indoors, as long as there is reasonable space.
More than 10,000 people have registered chicken flocks of 50 birds or more with Defra, and the industry is worth £1.3bn a year to farmers.
Bird flu has killed 91 people in Asia and Turkey since 2003, according to the World Health Organisation. Most victims were infected after handling sick birds, but scientists fear H5N1 could mutate and pass between humans.
India quarantines 3 as bird flu spreads faster
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1630805,001300820000.htm
Krittivas Mukherjee (Reuters)
Mumbai, February 20, 2006
In an attempt to contain its first outbreak of bird flu, India began a door-to-door search for people with fever, quarantining three babies in hospital.
In Europe, France tried to calm consumer fears after its first case of the H5N1 virus was discovered at the weekend by asking people to eat chicken.
India's health minister said the situation was "under control".
Authorities in Eygpt shut down eight zoos for weeks after 83 birds died there, some containing the deadly H5N1 strain.
At least 11 countries have reported bird flu outbreaks over the past three weeks, an indication the deadly virus is spreading faster.
The officials in the remote district of Nandurbar in Maharashtra launched a door-to-door check for people with fever, and continued a mass cull of between 300,000 and half a million birds.
Three young children with flu-like symptoms were hospitalised on Monday, joining a woman and a child who were placed in an isolation ward the previous day.
"Three children, all under the age of two, have been quarantined and put in the isolation ward of a hospital in Nandurbar district," Vijay Satbir Singh, health secretary of Maharashtra, said.
"There is no confirmed case of human avian influenza. I would like to assure ... the situation is closely monitored and under control," Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told parliament.
No human victims yet
His statement came after preliminary tests on Sunday on a dead farmer suspected to have been the first human victim proved to be negative for the disease.
Bird flu's relentless march into the heart of Europe from Asia continued with the virus reaching the German mainland at the weekend and Romania detecting further cases of dead poultry.
French Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said on Sunday consumers should help falling chicken farmers by continuing to eat chickens.
France confirmed its first case of the H5N1 virus in a dead duck on Saturday.
A photographer in Nandurbar said health workers wearing blue overhauls, anti-viral masks and goggles were culling chicken by wringing their necks or mixing chemicals in chicken feed.
The television images showed dead birds being dumped in pits covered up by heavy earthmovers.
TV also reported hotels and airlines dropping chicken and eggs from menus.
Poultry workers have been warned against culling chicken without protection after television images showed many of them using their bare hands to bury thousands of culled chicken.
Economic impact
The shares in Indian stock markets dropped on Monday as investors fretted about the economic impact.
Investors sold shares in farm products makers and hotels, fearing a drop in revenues, and bought shares of generic drug firms that may begin to sell influenza drugs.
Domestic poultry prices fell up to 40 per cent and were likely to remain depressed for a couple of weeks, Shashi Kapur, president of the Poultry Federation of India, said.
On Monday, Pakistan banned poultry from its neighbours, which found the disease in wild swans last week.
Still not ready for pandemic
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/13914446.htm
Recent bird flu outbreaks intensify the need for preparation. Progress, especially on vaccines, is slow.
By Chris Mondics
Inquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON - When President Bush outlined his plan for fighting a potential flu pandemic in November, he said nothing was more important than boosting the nation's flu vaccine capacity.
What he didn't say was that it probably would take years before the nation had enough vaccine to protect every American.
Since then, the stakes have only gotten higher.
The avian flu virus has been steadily expanding from Southeast Asia, reaching swans in Italy, Germany and possibly Denmark last week. While the virus still isn't easily transmissible among humans, its spread increases the odds of a full-blown flu outbreak.
"If we had a massive pandemic tomorrow, all of us would be in very serious trouble," said Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is leading the effort to develop vaccines.
One assumption of the government's pandemic flu plan is that plants that make seasonal flu vaccine would be converted to fight the pandemic strain.
But after years of decline, the nation's flu-making capacity is limited. The institute estimates capacity at about 180 million doses. But because each person would need two doses and because the vaccine would likely need to be stronger to guard against the current strain of avian flu, there might be enough vaccine to cover only 30 million Americans in a pandemic.
"It is a very serious problem," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), chairman of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees flu preparations. "The difficulty has been overcoming [government] inertia."
Congress approved $3.3 billion of the president's $7.1 billion request to prepare for a flu pandemic in the current fiscal year. The president asked for an additional $2.65 billion in the fiscal 2007 budget he sent to Congress Feb. 6, most of that to develop vaccine and other medicines.
While deadly, the H5N1 virus infecting migratory birds and poultry flocks in Asia, the Middle East, Africa - and, most recently, Greece, Italy and Germany - is not easily passed from one person to another. Worldwide, about 160 people are known to have been infected, mostly from contact with infected poultry. The mortality rate has been just over 50 percent.
Yet the disease bears genetic similarities to the virus that triggered the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918-19, and has the potential to evolve into a virus that spreads easily.
Moreover, flu pandemics tend to occur every 30 years or so, and by that yardstick, the world is overdue for another.
That is why top public health officials are nervous about the nation's vaccine supply.
The French vaccine-maker Sanofi Pasteur operates the country's only vaccine plant in Swiftwater, Pa., in the Poconos, with a capacity of about 50 million doses of trivalent vaccine, meaning that it protects against three types of flu viruses a year. The company plans to double the plant's capacity, but that would be far short of the amount needed to vaccinate 300 million Americans.
"Anyway you cut it, with the existing U.S. capacity we have today, we can't make enough vaccine quickly enough to protect the entire population," said Len Lavenda, a Sanofi Pasteur spokesman.
Other vaccine-makers, including GlaxoSmithKline and Chiron, also supply the American market with vaccines produced in plants in Belgium and the United Kingdom. But American policymakers have said far more capacity is needed in the United States because of the risk that foreign governments might divert their production to local markets.
The president's plan presumes that a combination of early warning systems, vaccine production, use of antivirals, and quarantines would contain the epidemic before it wreaks national havoc.
But, aside from dealing with relatively mild pandemics in 1957 and 1968, public-health officials in this era have never had to face a virulent pandemic flu with the potential for millions of fatalities, as was the case with the 1918-19 flu. Then, up to 750,000 people in the United States and 50 million worldwide died of the disease.
Bruce Gellin, director of the National Vaccine Program Office, says the reigning assumption is that a pandemic flu would hit the country in several waves, each three to four months in duration, with pauses in between, as it did during the 1918-19 pandemic.
Because it can take from three to six months to produce a flu vaccine once the pandemic flu strain is isolated, it is possible that many people would go unprotected at the start of the epidemic, even if there was capacity to shield everyone, Gellin said.
Successive waves of the flu, however, would be blunted by broad vaccinations, travel bans, and other containment policies.
But all of those assumptions could go out the window if a pandemic flu virus develops at a more accelerated pace.
Drugmakers are responding. Besides the expansion of the Sanofi Pasteur plant in Swiftwater, GlaxoSmithKline has begun working on a facility in Marietta, Pa., for the development of cell-based vaccine technologies, a relatively new technique that promises to greatly speed the production of flu vaccine. GSK also has expanded its flu vaccine plant in Dresden, Germany, to serve a growing world market.
The hope is that these and other projects come online before something bad happens - and that they work.
Did you notice the first line in the article (from hindustantimes) JPD posted above?
{In an attempt to contain its first outbreak of bird flu, India began a door-to-door search for people with fever, quarantining three babies in hospital.}
They took theses babies from their homes just because they were running a fever? Nobody ever better try to take my children like that!
{In an attempt to contain its first outbreak of bird flu, India began a door-to-door search for people with fever, quarantining three babies in hospital.}
They took theses babies from their homes just because they were running a fever? Nobody ever better try to take my children like that!
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
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<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>Bird Flu Human Cases In Indonesia Up To 26, Of Which 19 Fatal</font>
Bird Flu/Avian Flu News
Article Date: 20 Feb 2006 - 17:00pm (UK)
<A href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=38084">www.medicalnewstoday.com</a></center>
The Indonesian Ministry of Health has confirmed to the World Health Organization an additional case of human infection with the H5N1 bird flu virus strain.
The patient was a 23-year-old man, from East Jakarta. He worked as an egg seller in a wet market. He started showing bird-flu like symptoms on February 5th and was admitted to hospital two days later. The man died on February 10th.</b>
Authorities have tested his close friends, relatives and workmates for bird flu infection and found nothing.
So far, there have been 26 human cases of H5N1 infection, of which 19 have died.
<B><font size=+1 color=green><center>Bird Flu Human Cases In Indonesia Up To 26, Of Which 19 Fatal</font>
Bird Flu/Avian Flu News
Article Date: 20 Feb 2006 - 17:00pm (UK)
<A href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=38084">www.medicalnewstoday.com</a></center>
The Indonesian Ministry of Health has confirmed to the World Health Organization an additional case of human infection with the H5N1 bird flu virus strain.
The patient was a 23-year-old man, from East Jakarta. He worked as an egg seller in a wet market. He started showing bird-flu like symptoms on February 5th and was admitted to hospital two days later. The man died on February 10th.</b>
Authorities have tested his close friends, relatives and workmates for bird flu infection and found nothing.
So far, there have been 26 human cases of H5N1 infection, of which 19 have died.
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Bird flu: the species you should really fear </font>
February 20 2006
<A href="http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article346356.ece">news.independent.co.uk</a>
<font size=+0 color=purple>As the danger of a pandemic grows, Britain is woefully ill-prepared, says Geoffrey Lean </font>
Published: 19 February 2006 </center>
On Europe's swan lakes, the march of bird flu continues Britain faces an unprecedented airborne assault on two fronts over the next three months, as migratory birds infected with the deadly flu virus threaten to fly in from Europe and Africa. </b>
Yet an Independent on Sunday investigation shows that the country is poorly prepared to counter the danger, which last night reached eastern France, within just 400 miles of southern England.
It is also unprepared for a far greater danger: that the virus will mutate so that it can spread rapidly between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill more than 140 million people. That would make human beings much the most dangerous species of all, spreading the disease rapidly around the world through air travel.
The French government last night confirmed that a dead wild duck found near Lyon did have the killer H5N1 strain - after the virus had spread through six other European Union countries in a week. It is the first case of the virus in France. Experts say that cold weather could send birds carrying it across the Channel.
A swan in Vienna was also found to have the disease, while the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra said it had been found on 52 farms, in the subcontinent's first outbreak. The virus is also spreading in Nigeria, from where birds will start to migrate to Britain in April. There are also fears that it could be brought in by imported poultry or pet birds.
Last week's rapid spread across Europe caught experts and governments unawares as birds carried the disease to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia. As exclusively predicted in The Independent on Sunday in November, they are being driven westwards by abnormally cold weather, especially in Russia and Ukraine.
Officials in the Netherlands will ask the European Commission for permission to vaccinate six million chickens and other poultry against the disease. Government advisers say that if there was another cold snap, they could then be driven to Britain.
Most of the infected birds so far identified are swans, which rarely reach Britain from Europe. But the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes that their deaths may merely be the ones being noticed because they are "big and white", and that ducks such as widgeon and pochard, which do come here, may be doing more to spread the disease. The main danger from them will last until March, when the weather should warm up and the birds start migrating back to Siberia.
Over the following two months, the second threat will kick in, as waterfowl start to arrive from Africa. Nigeria, where the virus is spreading after being identified 10 days ago, is on a migratory crossroads, hosting birds - such as garganey and wood sandpiper - that will soon set off for Britain, as well as others that are believed to have brought the virus from Russia.
The sub-type of the H5N1 virus in Nigeria is almost identical to one first identified last summer in north-west China. It has since been traced through Russia and Turkey, and has an alarming trait that makes it susceptible to passing from birds to people.
Bird charities are worried that the crisis may turn people against waterfowl, and say the disease is most likely to have been spread by international trade in infected poultry. Leon Bennun, the director of science, policy and information for BirdLife International, says that outbreaks "have often followed major trade routes". Nigeria imports chickens from both Turkey and China. But most experts believe that wild birds are the main carriers.
Whichever is right, the danger is that poultry flocks will be infected, bringing the virus nearer to people. In fact, H5N1 has already been found in Britain, where it was discovered last October in pet birds in quarantine in Essex. Originally, ministers said it had been identified in a parrot, but had to confess that a mesia finch was to blame; samples from the two birds had been mixed up.
The wild bird trade was banned across Europe, giving customs officials more time to concentrate on searching for illegally imported birds. As yet the virus is still mainly a bird disease. Around 160 people are known to have caught it worldwide as yet, although an alarmingly high proportion- over half - have died. The real crisis will come when the virus mutates, as experts believe is inevitable, so that it can spread rapidly from person to person.
World Health Organisation officials say that more than 140 million people could die worldwide: the Government believes up to 750,000 could perish in Britain.
There are big holes in Britain's defences against both forms of the disease. Ministers are refusing to order poultry to be kept indoors, though France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic have all done so. They hint that they might change their mind after the virus has arrived in Britain. Even then, poultry keepers will only be obliged to comply where "practicable", and allowed to decide this for themselves, so making enforcement impossible.
The Government has also been tardy in holding its first full bird flu exercise. The two-day Exercise Hawthorn - designed to "test the strategic response to a disease outbreak" across government - will begin only on 5 April, when the migratory season will already be under way, and will not report until the summer. Tory agriculture spokesman Jim Paice attacked the Government's "leisurely timetable", and says that the exercise should start immediately "so that the current state of readiness can be assessed and improved before the threat increases".
The more the bird disease spreads, the greater the chance that the virus will mutate to cause a human pandemic. But the Government still has fewer than half the 14.6 million doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu it ordered to tackle an outbreak one - and the House of Lords committee on science and technology has suggested that this may be too few. It has also yet to sign contracts for an order it announced last August for two to three million doses of a vaccine to protect health workers and other vital services.
The committee concluded that, though government plans for fighting a pandemic look good on paper, an "enormous amount" still needs to be done to put them into practice. It was "particularly alarmed at the risk of serious disruption to food supplies" as lorry drivers and supermarket shelf-stackers became ill.
Professor Jim Norton, a director of the Institute of Directors, told the committee of the danger of "cascades of failures" where the loss of power could cause other vital services to collapse, including mobile phone networks. Top medical experts say that the reorganisation of primary care trusts is causing "utter chaos and confusion" just when their doctors and nurses face up to a possible pandemic.
The Government formally dismissed the committee's criticisms on Thursday. It said: "A considerable amount of work has been going on across central and local government and the NHS to prepare for a pandemic."
HOW IT SPREAD
1996 H5N1 virus first identified in a goose in China.
1997 Kills six people in Hong Kong. Its entire population of 1.5 million chickens slaughtered in three days. Virus disappears.
2003 Re-emerges and spreads in South-east Asia.
2004 Human cases reported in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. World Health Organisation warns of possible pandemic.
Summer 2005 Mass deaths of birds at a migratory hub in north-west China. Birds carry the virus as they fly through Russia.
October 2005 The virus reaches Turkey and then Romania. Imported finches with the virus found in quarantine in Essex.
January 2005 First human cases found in Turkey. Four children die.
February 2006 Virus spreading worldwide. Found in birds in Nigeria, Egypt and India - and moving rapidly through Europe.
On Europe's swan lakes, the march of bird flu continues
Britain faces an unprecedented airborne assault on two fronts over the next three months, as migratory birds infected with the deadly flu virus threaten to fly in from Europe and Africa.
Yet an Independent on Sunday investigation shows that the country is poorly prepared to counter the danger, which last night reached eastern France, within just 400 miles of southern England.
It is also unprepared for a far greater danger: that the virus will mutate so that it can spread rapidly between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill more than 140 million people. That would make human beings much the most dangerous species of all, spreading the disease rapidly around the world through air travel.
The French government last night confirmed that a dead wild duck found near Lyon did have the killer H5N1 strain - after the virus had spread through six other European Union countries in a week. It is the first case of the virus in France. Experts say that cold weather could send birds carrying it across the Channel.
A swan in Vienna was also found to have the disease, while the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra said it had been found on 52 farms, in the subcontinent's first outbreak. The virus is also spreading in Nigeria, from where birds will start to migrate to Britain in April. There are also fears that it could be brought in by imported poultry or pet birds.
Last week's rapid spread across Europe caught experts and governments unawares as birds carried the disease to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia. As exclusively predicted in The Independent on Sunday in November, they are being driven westwards by abnormally cold weather, especially in Russia and Ukraine.
Officials in the Netherlands will ask the European Commission for permission to vaccinate six million chickens and other poultry against the disease. Government advisers say that if there was another cold snap, they could then be driven to Britain.
Most of the infected birds so far identified are swans, which rarely reach Britain from Europe. But the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes that their deaths may merely be the ones being noticed because they are "big and white", and that ducks such as widgeon and pochard, which do come here, may be doing more to spread the disease. The main danger from them will last until March, when the weather should warm up and the birds start migrating back to Siberia.
Over the following two months, the second threat will kick in, as waterfowl start to arrive from Africa. Nigeria, where the virus is spreading after being identified 10 days ago, is on a migratory crossroads, hosting birds - such as garganey and wood sandpiper - that will soon set off for Britain, as well as others that are believed to have brought the virus from Russia.
The sub-type of the H5N1 virus in Nigeria is almost identical to one first identified last summer in north-west China. It has since been traced through Russia and Turkey, and has an alarming trait that makes it susceptible to passing from birds to people.
Bird charities are worried that the crisis may turn people against waterfowl, and say the disease is most likely to have been spread by international trade in infected poultry. Leon Bennun, the director of science, policy and information for BirdLife International, says that outbreaks "have often followed major trade routes". Nigeria imports chickens from both Turkey and China. But most experts believe that wild birds are the main carriers.
Whichever is right, the danger is that poultry flocks will be infected, bringing the virus nearer to people. In fact, H5N1 has already been found in Britain, where it was discovered last October in pet birds in quarantine in Essex. Originally, ministers said it had been identified in a parrot, but had to confess that a mesia finch was to blame; samples from the two birds had been mixed up.
The wild bird trade was banned across Europe, giving customs officials more time to concentrate on searching for illegally imported birds. As yet the virus is still mainly a bird disease. Around 160 people are known to have caught it worldwide as yet, although an alarmingly high proportion- over half - have died. The real crisis will come when the virus mutates, as experts believe is inevitable, so that it can spread rapidly from person to person.
World Health Organisation officials say that more than 140 million people could die worldwide: the Government believes up to 750,000 could perish in Britain.
There are big holes in Britain's defences against both forms of the disease. Ministers are refusing to order poultry to be kept indoors, though France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic have all done so. They hint that they might change their mind after the virus has arrived in Britain. Even then, poultry keepers will only be obliged to comply where "practicable", and allowed to decide this for themselves, so making enforcement impossible.
The Government has also been tardy in holding its first full bird flu exercise. The two-day Exercise Hawthorn - designed to "test the strategic response to a disease outbreak" across government - will begin only on 5 April, when the migratory season will already be under way, and will not report until the summer. Tory agriculture spokesman Jim Paice attacked the Government's "leisurely timetable", and says that the exercise should start immediately "so that the current state of readiness can be assessed and improved before the threat increases".
The more the bird disease spreads, the greater the chance that the virus will mutate to cause a human pandemic. But the Government still has fewer than half the 14.6 million doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu it ordered to tackle an outbreak one - and the House of Lords committee on science and technology has suggested that this may be too few. It has also yet to sign contracts for an order it announced last August for two to three million doses of a vaccine to protect health workers and other vital services.
The committee concluded that, though government plans for fighting a pandemic look good on paper, an "enormous amount" still needs to be done to put them into practice. It was "particularly alarmed at the risk of serious disruption to food supplies" as lorry drivers and supermarket shelf-stackers became ill.
Professor Jim Norton, a director of the Institute of Directors, told the committee of the danger of "cascades of failures" where the loss of power could cause other vital services to collapse, including mobile phone networks. Top medical experts say that the reorganisation of primary care trusts is causing "utter chaos and confusion" just when their doctors and nurses face up to a possible pandemic.
The Government formally dismissed the committee's criticisms on Thursday. It said: "A considerable amount of work has been going on across central and local government and the NHS to prepare for a pandemic."
HOW IT SPREAD
1996 H5N1 virus first identified in a goose in China.
1997 Kills six people in Hong Kong. Its entire population of 1.5 million chickens slaughtered in three days. Virus disappears.
2003 Re-emerges and spreads in South-east Asia.
2004 Human cases reported in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. World Health Organisation warns of possible pandemic.
Summer 2005 Mass deaths of birds at a migratory hub in north-west China. Birds carry the virus as they fly through Russia.
October 2005 The virus reaches Turkey and then Romania. Imported finches with the virus found in quarantine in Essex.
January 2005 First human cases found in Turkey. Four children die.
February 2006 Virus spreading worldwide. Found in birds in Nigeria, Egypt and India - and moving rapidly through Europe.
<B><font size=+1 color=blue><center>Bird flu: the species you should really fear </font>
February 20 2006
<A href="http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article346356.ece">news.independent.co.uk</a>
<font size=+0 color=purple>As the danger of a pandemic grows, Britain is woefully ill-prepared, says Geoffrey Lean </font>
Published: 19 February 2006 </center>
On Europe's swan lakes, the march of bird flu continues Britain faces an unprecedented airborne assault on two fronts over the next three months, as migratory birds infected with the deadly flu virus threaten to fly in from Europe and Africa. </b>
Yet an Independent on Sunday investigation shows that the country is poorly prepared to counter the danger, which last night reached eastern France, within just 400 miles of southern England.
It is also unprepared for a far greater danger: that the virus will mutate so that it can spread rapidly between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill more than 140 million people. That would make human beings much the most dangerous species of all, spreading the disease rapidly around the world through air travel.
The French government last night confirmed that a dead wild duck found near Lyon did have the killer H5N1 strain - after the virus had spread through six other European Union countries in a week. It is the first case of the virus in France. Experts say that cold weather could send birds carrying it across the Channel.
A swan in Vienna was also found to have the disease, while the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra said it had been found on 52 farms, in the subcontinent's first outbreak. The virus is also spreading in Nigeria, from where birds will start to migrate to Britain in April. There are also fears that it could be brought in by imported poultry or pet birds.
Last week's rapid spread across Europe caught experts and governments unawares as birds carried the disease to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia. As exclusively predicted in The Independent on Sunday in November, they are being driven westwards by abnormally cold weather, especially in Russia and Ukraine.
Officials in the Netherlands will ask the European Commission for permission to vaccinate six million chickens and other poultry against the disease. Government advisers say that if there was another cold snap, they could then be driven to Britain.
Most of the infected birds so far identified are swans, which rarely reach Britain from Europe. But the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes that their deaths may merely be the ones being noticed because they are "big and white", and that ducks such as widgeon and pochard, which do come here, may be doing more to spread the disease. The main danger from them will last until March, when the weather should warm up and the birds start migrating back to Siberia.
Over the following two months, the second threat will kick in, as waterfowl start to arrive from Africa. Nigeria, where the virus is spreading after being identified 10 days ago, is on a migratory crossroads, hosting birds - such as garganey and wood sandpiper - that will soon set off for Britain, as well as others that are believed to have brought the virus from Russia.
The sub-type of the H5N1 virus in Nigeria is almost identical to one first identified last summer in north-west China. It has since been traced through Russia and Turkey, and has an alarming trait that makes it susceptible to passing from birds to people.
Bird charities are worried that the crisis may turn people against waterfowl, and say the disease is most likely to have been spread by international trade in infected poultry. Leon Bennun, the director of science, policy and information for BirdLife International, says that outbreaks "have often followed major trade routes". Nigeria imports chickens from both Turkey and China. But most experts believe that wild birds are the main carriers.
Whichever is right, the danger is that poultry flocks will be infected, bringing the virus nearer to people. In fact, H5N1 has already been found in Britain, where it was discovered last October in pet birds in quarantine in Essex. Originally, ministers said it had been identified in a parrot, but had to confess that a mesia finch was to blame; samples from the two birds had been mixed up.
The wild bird trade was banned across Europe, giving customs officials more time to concentrate on searching for illegally imported birds. As yet the virus is still mainly a bird disease. Around 160 people are known to have caught it worldwide as yet, although an alarmingly high proportion- over half - have died. The real crisis will come when the virus mutates, as experts believe is inevitable, so that it can spread rapidly from person to person.
World Health Organisation officials say that more than 140 million people could die worldwide: the Government believes up to 750,000 could perish in Britain.
There are big holes in Britain's defences against both forms of the disease. Ministers are refusing to order poultry to be kept indoors, though France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic have all done so. They hint that they might change their mind after the virus has arrived in Britain. Even then, poultry keepers will only be obliged to comply where "practicable", and allowed to decide this for themselves, so making enforcement impossible.
The Government has also been tardy in holding its first full bird flu exercise. The two-day Exercise Hawthorn - designed to "test the strategic response to a disease outbreak" across government - will begin only on 5 April, when the migratory season will already be under way, and will not report until the summer. Tory agriculture spokesman Jim Paice attacked the Government's "leisurely timetable", and says that the exercise should start immediately "so that the current state of readiness can be assessed and improved before the threat increases".
The more the bird disease spreads, the greater the chance that the virus will mutate to cause a human pandemic. But the Government still has fewer than half the 14.6 million doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu it ordered to tackle an outbreak one - and the House of Lords committee on science and technology has suggested that this may be too few. It has also yet to sign contracts for an order it announced last August for two to three million doses of a vaccine to protect health workers and other vital services.
The committee concluded that, though government plans for fighting a pandemic look good on paper, an "enormous amount" still needs to be done to put them into practice. It was "particularly alarmed at the risk of serious disruption to food supplies" as lorry drivers and supermarket shelf-stackers became ill.
Professor Jim Norton, a director of the Institute of Directors, told the committee of the danger of "cascades of failures" where the loss of power could cause other vital services to collapse, including mobile phone networks. Top medical experts say that the reorganisation of primary care trusts is causing "utter chaos and confusion" just when their doctors and nurses face up to a possible pandemic.
The Government formally dismissed the committee's criticisms on Thursday. It said: "A considerable amount of work has been going on across central and local government and the NHS to prepare for a pandemic."
HOW IT SPREAD
1996 H5N1 virus first identified in a goose in China.
1997 Kills six people in Hong Kong. Its entire population of 1.5 million chickens slaughtered in three days. Virus disappears.
2003 Re-emerges and spreads in South-east Asia.
2004 Human cases reported in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. World Health Organisation warns of possible pandemic.
Summer 2005 Mass deaths of birds at a migratory hub in north-west China. Birds carry the virus as they fly through Russia.
October 2005 The virus reaches Turkey and then Romania. Imported finches with the virus found in quarantine in Essex.
January 2005 First human cases found in Turkey. Four children die.
February 2006 Virus spreading worldwide. Found in birds in Nigeria, Egypt and India - and moving rapidly through Europe.
On Europe's swan lakes, the march of bird flu continues
Britain faces an unprecedented airborne assault on two fronts over the next three months, as migratory birds infected with the deadly flu virus threaten to fly in from Europe and Africa.
Yet an Independent on Sunday investigation shows that the country is poorly prepared to counter the danger, which last night reached eastern France, within just 400 miles of southern England.
It is also unprepared for a far greater danger: that the virus will mutate so that it can spread rapidly between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill more than 140 million people. That would make human beings much the most dangerous species of all, spreading the disease rapidly around the world through air travel.
The French government last night confirmed that a dead wild duck found near Lyon did have the killer H5N1 strain - after the virus had spread through six other European Union countries in a week. It is the first case of the virus in France. Experts say that cold weather could send birds carrying it across the Channel.
A swan in Vienna was also found to have the disease, while the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra said it had been found on 52 farms, in the subcontinent's first outbreak. The virus is also spreading in Nigeria, from where birds will start to migrate to Britain in April. There are also fears that it could be brought in by imported poultry or pet birds.
Last week's rapid spread across Europe caught experts and governments unawares as birds carried the disease to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Slovenia. As exclusively predicted in The Independent on Sunday in November, they are being driven westwards by abnormally cold weather, especially in Russia and Ukraine.
Officials in the Netherlands will ask the European Commission for permission to vaccinate six million chickens and other poultry against the disease. Government advisers say that if there was another cold snap, they could then be driven to Britain.
Most of the infected birds so far identified are swans, which rarely reach Britain from Europe. But the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes that their deaths may merely be the ones being noticed because they are "big and white", and that ducks such as widgeon and pochard, which do come here, may be doing more to spread the disease. The main danger from them will last until March, when the weather should warm up and the birds start migrating back to Siberia.
Over the following two months, the second threat will kick in, as waterfowl start to arrive from Africa. Nigeria, where the virus is spreading after being identified 10 days ago, is on a migratory crossroads, hosting birds - such as garganey and wood sandpiper - that will soon set off for Britain, as well as others that are believed to have brought the virus from Russia.
The sub-type of the H5N1 virus in Nigeria is almost identical to one first identified last summer in north-west China. It has since been traced through Russia and Turkey, and has an alarming trait that makes it susceptible to passing from birds to people.
Bird charities are worried that the crisis may turn people against waterfowl, and say the disease is most likely to have been spread by international trade in infected poultry. Leon Bennun, the director of science, policy and information for BirdLife International, says that outbreaks "have often followed major trade routes". Nigeria imports chickens from both Turkey and China. But most experts believe that wild birds are the main carriers.
Whichever is right, the danger is that poultry flocks will be infected, bringing the virus nearer to people. In fact, H5N1 has already been found in Britain, where it was discovered last October in pet birds in quarantine in Essex. Originally, ministers said it had been identified in a parrot, but had to confess that a mesia finch was to blame; samples from the two birds had been mixed up.
The wild bird trade was banned across Europe, giving customs officials more time to concentrate on searching for illegally imported birds. As yet the virus is still mainly a bird disease. Around 160 people are known to have caught it worldwide as yet, although an alarmingly high proportion- over half - have died. The real crisis will come when the virus mutates, as experts believe is inevitable, so that it can spread rapidly from person to person.
World Health Organisation officials say that more than 140 million people could die worldwide: the Government believes up to 750,000 could perish in Britain.
There are big holes in Britain's defences against both forms of the disease. Ministers are refusing to order poultry to be kept indoors, though France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Czech Republic have all done so. They hint that they might change their mind after the virus has arrived in Britain. Even then, poultry keepers will only be obliged to comply where "practicable", and allowed to decide this for themselves, so making enforcement impossible.
The Government has also been tardy in holding its first full bird flu exercise. The two-day Exercise Hawthorn - designed to "test the strategic response to a disease outbreak" across government - will begin only on 5 April, when the migratory season will already be under way, and will not report until the summer. Tory agriculture spokesman Jim Paice attacked the Government's "leisurely timetable", and says that the exercise should start immediately "so that the current state of readiness can be assessed and improved before the threat increases".
The more the bird disease spreads, the greater the chance that the virus will mutate to cause a human pandemic. But the Government still has fewer than half the 14.6 million doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu it ordered to tackle an outbreak one - and the House of Lords committee on science and technology has suggested that this may be too few. It has also yet to sign contracts for an order it announced last August for two to three million doses of a vaccine to protect health workers and other vital services.
The committee concluded that, though government plans for fighting a pandemic look good on paper, an "enormous amount" still needs to be done to put them into practice. It was "particularly alarmed at the risk of serious disruption to food supplies" as lorry drivers and supermarket shelf-stackers became ill.
Professor Jim Norton, a director of the Institute of Directors, told the committee of the danger of "cascades of failures" where the loss of power could cause other vital services to collapse, including mobile phone networks. Top medical experts say that the reorganisation of primary care trusts is causing "utter chaos and confusion" just when their doctors and nurses face up to a possible pandemic.
The Government formally dismissed the committee's criticisms on Thursday. It said: "A considerable amount of work has been going on across central and local government and the NHS to prepare for a pandemic."
HOW IT SPREAD
1996 H5N1 virus first identified in a goose in China.
1997 Kills six people in Hong Kong. Its entire population of 1.5 million chickens slaughtered in three days. Virus disappears.
2003 Re-emerges and spreads in South-east Asia.
2004 Human cases reported in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. World Health Organisation warns of possible pandemic.
Summer 2005 Mass deaths of birds at a migratory hub in north-west China. Birds carry the virus as they fly through Russia.
October 2005 The virus reaches Turkey and then Romania. Imported finches with the virus found in quarantine in Essex.
January 2005 First human cases found in Turkey. Four children die.
February 2006 Virus spreading worldwide. Found in birds in Nigeria, Egypt and India - and moving rapidly through Europe.
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><center>Monday February 20, 2006
<font size=+1 color=purple>Test bird-flu contingency plans now </font>
<A href="http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=128021">www.conservatives.com</a></center>
Conservatives have called on the Government to step up the UK's state of readiness in case the international outbreak of bird flu spreads to Britain.
Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth has recommended that plans to try out contingency planning measures in April should be brought forward, with testing carried out "as a matter of urgency".</b>
And he has appealed to ministers to clear up confusion over whether to lock up poultry - both among large scale commercial operators, and people with a small number of birds - by issuing clear instructions on what owners should do now to counter the disease.
As the nation awaits the results of tests carried out on nine British swans which died over the weekend, he said: "The Government has said that they have adequate contingency plans in the event of the disease being found in the UK. However, they have not scheduled a trial of their plans until April. Since there is no point in testing a contingency after the event, and the arrival of bird flu could be imminent, they should bring forward trial as a matter of urgency."
Mr Ainsworth added: "Large scale poultry farmers already have bio-security arrangements in place. There is a potentially greater problem with the hundreds of thousands of small scale, often non-commercial chicken owners. Their whereabouts are not known. The government is introducing a voluntary registration scheme, and should have done so already. We urge owners of poultry to register with this scheme, and to seek advice from the DEFRA website.
"Any temptation to panic is fuelled by a lack of adequate information. We urge the Government to undertake a major public information exercise, so that all poultry owners will know exactly what they will need to do in the event of an outbreak, and the public at large can be reassured about continuing to buy British chickens."
"In its present form avian flu is a bird disease, which only in rare and exceptional cases can be caught by humans. It does not spread like Foot and mouth among the animal population."
Then, commenting on the latest scientific recommendations that all poultry keepers should lock up their birds now to prevent a bird-flu outbreak, Mr Ainsworth stated: "Given the latest warnings from scientists, we need to work on the assumption that the disease will arrive in the UK, if it has not already done so.
"The Government needs to tell people what measures to take now if they are chicken owners, poultry producers or consumers. An urgent national public information campaign is required."
The Conservatives spokesman said: "The Government particularly needs to clear up confusion over whether or not poultry keepers should lock up their birds, as some experts have suggested today. "For the majority of large scale commercial poultry farmers who have bio-security plans in place, this should not prove a problem. However, it is likely that there are many thousands of poultry owners who will find it hard to house their chickens in secure locations. People need clear guidance from the Government as to what to do."
<B><center>Monday February 20, 2006
<font size=+1 color=purple>Test bird-flu contingency plans now </font>
<A href="http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=128021">www.conservatives.com</a></center>
Conservatives have called on the Government to step up the UK's state of readiness in case the international outbreak of bird flu spreads to Britain.
Shadow Environment Secretary Peter Ainsworth has recommended that plans to try out contingency planning measures in April should be brought forward, with testing carried out "as a matter of urgency".</b>
And he has appealed to ministers to clear up confusion over whether to lock up poultry - both among large scale commercial operators, and people with a small number of birds - by issuing clear instructions on what owners should do now to counter the disease.
As the nation awaits the results of tests carried out on nine British swans which died over the weekend, he said: "The Government has said that they have adequate contingency plans in the event of the disease being found in the UK. However, they have not scheduled a trial of their plans until April. Since there is no point in testing a contingency after the event, and the arrival of bird flu could be imminent, they should bring forward trial as a matter of urgency."
Mr Ainsworth added: "Large scale poultry farmers already have bio-security arrangements in place. There is a potentially greater problem with the hundreds of thousands of small scale, often non-commercial chicken owners. Their whereabouts are not known. The government is introducing a voluntary registration scheme, and should have done so already. We urge owners of poultry to register with this scheme, and to seek advice from the DEFRA website.
"Any temptation to panic is fuelled by a lack of adequate information. We urge the Government to undertake a major public information exercise, so that all poultry owners will know exactly what they will need to do in the event of an outbreak, and the public at large can be reassured about continuing to buy British chickens."
"In its present form avian flu is a bird disease, which only in rare and exceptional cases can be caught by humans. It does not spread like Foot and mouth among the animal population."
Then, commenting on the latest scientific recommendations that all poultry keepers should lock up their birds now to prevent a bird-flu outbreak, Mr Ainsworth stated: "Given the latest warnings from scientists, we need to work on the assumption that the disease will arrive in the UK, if it has not already done so.
"The Government needs to tell people what measures to take now if they are chicken owners, poultry producers or consumers. An urgent national public information campaign is required."
The Conservatives spokesman said: "The Government particularly needs to clear up confusion over whether or not poultry keepers should lock up their birds, as some experts have suggested today. "For the majority of large scale commercial poultry farmers who have bio-security plans in place, this should not prove a problem. However, it is likely that there are many thousands of poultry owners who will find it hard to house their chickens in secure locations. People need clear guidance from the Government as to what to do."
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><center>India
<font size=+1 color=purple>Bird flu: Hospitals have no clue</font>
[ Monday, February 20, 2006 12:08:02 ]
<A href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1420718.cms">timesof india.com</a></center>
NEW DELHI: More than a day after the first case of bird flu was detected in the country, most city hospitals say they are yet to receive instructions on tackling it.
"We will hold a meeting on Monday and then decide what to do. From what we understand, there is no need for ear-marking any hospital wards. </b>
As far as medicines are concerned, they are needed for those who have been directly exposed to the infected birds which hasn't happened here as yet," said principal secretary (health) Rakesh Mehta.
Officials at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital in Hari Nagar, Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) in central Delhi and Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kingsway Camp, said they had received no instructions from the government on how to handle bird flu.
"There have been no instructions as yet. When we get them, we will prepare the hospital," said Dr M C Nath, medical superintendent (MS) at DDU Hospital.
<B><center>India
<font size=+1 color=purple>Bird flu: Hospitals have no clue</font>
[ Monday, February 20, 2006 12:08:02 ]
<A href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1420718.cms">timesof india.com</a></center>
NEW DELHI: More than a day after the first case of bird flu was detected in the country, most city hospitals say they are yet to receive instructions on tackling it.
"We will hold a meeting on Monday and then decide what to do. From what we understand, there is no need for ear-marking any hospital wards. </b>
As far as medicines are concerned, they are needed for those who have been directly exposed to the infected birds which hasn't happened here as yet," said principal secretary (health) Rakesh Mehta.
Officials at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital in Hari Nagar, Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) in central Delhi and Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kingsway Camp, said they had received no instructions from the government on how to handle bird flu.
"There have been no instructions as yet. When we get them, we will prepare the hospital," said Dr M C Nath, medical superintendent (MS) at DDU Hospital.
The Flying Dutchman
Deceased
=
<B><center>The Deadly Side Effects of Avian Flu
<font size=+1 color=red>Fixated on fighting bird flu, we risk shortchanging other prevention programs </font>
BY BRYAN WALSH
<A href="http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501060227-1161326,00.html?promoid=rss_world">www.time.com</a>
Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006</center>
International donors at a conference in Beijing last month pledged $1.9 billion for global efforts to control bird flu. The latest news on the spread of the disease suggests this would be money well spent. Over the past two weeks, H5N1 avian flu has breached the heart of Europe, cropping up in Germany, Italy, Austria and France, among other countries. On Saturday, India confirmed its first outbreak of H5N1 in poultry, and began culling 500,000 birds in the western state of Maharashtra. Yet in a world where millions die every year because of diseases that could be prevented with a bit more funding, $1.9 billion is a lot of money for a virus that has so far killed fewer than 100 people. A real risk exists that a single-minded battle against a pandemic that may or may not occur soon could drain needed health resources from clear and present dangers. </b>
Nowhere is that choice more stark than in Africa. Earlier this month, authorities uncovered a large bird-flu outbreak on several poultry farms in northern Nigeria, the first time H5N1 has been found on the continent; more than 140,000 chickens have so far died from the virus or been culled. Though no human cases have been discovered yet, the news that the outbreak had gone undetected for up to a month raises concerns that the virus may already be spreading under the radar to other parts of the continent. Africa has an estimated poultry population of 1.1 billion birds, many of them sharing living space with people—the same epidemiological powder keg that enabled bird flu to cause so much damage in much of Southeast Asia. Avian-flu experts see impoverished Africa, with its inefficient governments and millions of immuno-compromised HIV infectees, as a perfect breeding ground for a pandemic.
Yet the sheer number and severity of Africa's ills puts bird flu in perspective. Medical resources in Africa are cruelly finite—death tolls rise and fall according to how well those resources are allocated. Africa has no shortage of candidates to compete for triage: an estimated 6,600 Africans die of AIDS every day, 3,000 die of malaria, 24,000 of hunger and poverty. As long as bird flu primarily remains a threat to birds, it just doesn't compare with these everyday scourges. Even South Africa, the nation best equipped to respond to bird flu, faces "a lot of other health issues" competing for resources, says Dr. Lucille Blumberg, head of the epidemiology and outbreak unit at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Referring to AIDS, she notes: "We already have an epidemic here that's killing hundreds of people a day." A spokesperson for the World Health Organization's Roll Back Malaria program points out that while the need for malaria funding tops $3 billion every year, only $600 million was available in 2005. International donors need to be very sure that they aren't robbing from other health programs to pay for bird-flu measures.
This does not mean the world should neglect to take prudent steps to fight bird flu—a pandemic could become the greatest health catastrophe the modern world has ever faced. Avian flu is already beginning to cause real economic pain. When infected wild birds were detected last week in European countries, poultry sales across the continent plummeted. But a handful of dead swans on the Danube and a bad quarter for chicken sellers in Rome isn't why we're spending billions to fight bird flu. We want to stop the big one. A report released last week by an Australian think tank reminded us just how big that might be. The Lowy Institute estimated that a worst-case pandemic, one even deadlier than the 1918 Spanish Flu, could kill up to 142 million people and cost the global economy $4.4 trillion—the equivalent of eliminating Japan's annual economic output.
Those are scary numbers, but they're hardly the only frightening pandemic predictions circulating these days. Last month, two doctors in Minnesota published a modest paper in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. The authors point out that even in a weak pandemic there would be far fewer mechanical ventilators than the number of desperately ill flu patients who would need them to survive. "In this situation," they write, "triage of resources would be needed to offer 'the greatest good for the greatest number.'" That means that the very sick or the very old would probably be denied ventilator support—even removed from the machines—in favor of those more likely to survive. The assumption that most people in the developed world have about medical care—that everything possible will be done to help the sick—would be shattered. Doctors would be left to allocate scarce resources, deciding who should live and who should die. If that happens, Africa will no longer seem so far away.
<B><center>The Deadly Side Effects of Avian Flu
<font size=+1 color=red>Fixated on fighting bird flu, we risk shortchanging other prevention programs </font>
BY BRYAN WALSH
<A href="http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501060227-1161326,00.html?promoid=rss_world">www.time.com</a>
Sunday, Feb. 19, 2006</center>
International donors at a conference in Beijing last month pledged $1.9 billion for global efforts to control bird flu. The latest news on the spread of the disease suggests this would be money well spent. Over the past two weeks, H5N1 avian flu has breached the heart of Europe, cropping up in Germany, Italy, Austria and France, among other countries. On Saturday, India confirmed its first outbreak of H5N1 in poultry, and began culling 500,000 birds in the western state of Maharashtra. Yet in a world where millions die every year because of diseases that could be prevented with a bit more funding, $1.9 billion is a lot of money for a virus that has so far killed fewer than 100 people. A real risk exists that a single-minded battle against a pandemic that may or may not occur soon could drain needed health resources from clear and present dangers. </b>
Nowhere is that choice more stark than in Africa. Earlier this month, authorities uncovered a large bird-flu outbreak on several poultry farms in northern Nigeria, the first time H5N1 has been found on the continent; more than 140,000 chickens have so far died from the virus or been culled. Though no human cases have been discovered yet, the news that the outbreak had gone undetected for up to a month raises concerns that the virus may already be spreading under the radar to other parts of the continent. Africa has an estimated poultry population of 1.1 billion birds, many of them sharing living space with people—the same epidemiological powder keg that enabled bird flu to cause so much damage in much of Southeast Asia. Avian-flu experts see impoverished Africa, with its inefficient governments and millions of immuno-compromised HIV infectees, as a perfect breeding ground for a pandemic.
Yet the sheer number and severity of Africa's ills puts bird flu in perspective. Medical resources in Africa are cruelly finite—death tolls rise and fall according to how well those resources are allocated. Africa has no shortage of candidates to compete for triage: an estimated 6,600 Africans die of AIDS every day, 3,000 die of malaria, 24,000 of hunger and poverty. As long as bird flu primarily remains a threat to birds, it just doesn't compare with these everyday scourges. Even South Africa, the nation best equipped to respond to bird flu, faces "a lot of other health issues" competing for resources, says Dr. Lucille Blumberg, head of the epidemiology and outbreak unit at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Referring to AIDS, she notes: "We already have an epidemic here that's killing hundreds of people a day." A spokesperson for the World Health Organization's Roll Back Malaria program points out that while the need for malaria funding tops $3 billion every year, only $600 million was available in 2005. International donors need to be very sure that they aren't robbing from other health programs to pay for bird-flu measures.
This does not mean the world should neglect to take prudent steps to fight bird flu—a pandemic could become the greatest health catastrophe the modern world has ever faced. Avian flu is already beginning to cause real economic pain. When infected wild birds were detected last week in European countries, poultry sales across the continent plummeted. But a handful of dead swans on the Danube and a bad quarter for chicken sellers in Rome isn't why we're spending billions to fight bird flu. We want to stop the big one. A report released last week by an Australian think tank reminded us just how big that might be. The Lowy Institute estimated that a worst-case pandemic, one even deadlier than the 1918 Spanish Flu, could kill up to 142 million people and cost the global economy $4.4 trillion—the equivalent of eliminating Japan's annual economic output.
Those are scary numbers, but they're hardly the only frightening pandemic predictions circulating these days. Last month, two doctors in Minnesota published a modest paper in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. The authors point out that even in a weak pandemic there would be far fewer mechanical ventilators than the number of desperately ill flu patients who would need them to survive. "In this situation," they write, "triage of resources would be needed to offer 'the greatest good for the greatest number.'" That means that the very sick or the very old would probably be denied ventilator support—even removed from the machines—in favor of those more likely to survive. The assumption that most people in the developed world have about medical care—that everything possible will be done to help the sick—would be shattered. Doctors would be left to allocate scarce resources, deciding who should live and who should die. If that happens, Africa will no longer seem so far away.
Kim99
Veteran Member
http://www.debka.com/
Bird flu alert in Palestinian Authority
February 20, 2006, 5:35 PM (GMT+02:00)
Some 600 birds found dead in large henhouse in northern Gaza Strip. Samples sent for testing to Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture labs
Bird flu alert in Palestinian Authority
February 20, 2006, 5:35 PM (GMT+02:00)
Some 600 birds found dead in large henhouse in northern Gaza Strip. Samples sent for testing to Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture labs
PCViking
Lutefisk Survivor
Bird flu spreading fast
From: Reuters From correspondents in MumbaiFebruary 21, 2006
INDIA began a door-to-door search for people with fever today, quarantining six people in hospital as authorities scrambled to contain the country's first outbreak of bird flu.
In Europe, officials urged people to carry on eating poultry meat despite outbreaks of the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain, saying European Union authorities had the means available to wipe out the disease.
A string of EU countries have now confirmed H5N1 in wild birds, knocking consumer confidence in poultry meat - especially chicken.
"We have the measures and legislation for containment and eradication of such diseases," EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told a news conference in Brussels.
In Germany, Tornado reconnaissance warplanes and soldiers in biohazard suits were deployed to prevent the spread of bird flu after H5N1 reached the mainland.
Sixty soldiers clad in disease protection suits and gas masks disinfected vehicles on the Baltic island of Ruegen where the virus was found in swans.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18220600-38197,00.html
Kim99
Veteran Member
Mother, Son having 'mild flu' admitted to hospital
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articl...=276891&sid=REG
Navapur (Maha), Feb 20: The mother and brother of a 27-year-old man, who the authorities said died of "acute respiratory distress" and not because of Bird Flu, have shown symptoms of mild flu and have been hospitalised here.
Ganesh Bhai Ramesh Bhai Sonar, who hailed from Navapur, died yesterday in a hospital in neighbouring Surat and officials said his death was due to acute respiratory distress and was not related to the avian influenza.
They said he had "no exposure to poultry". Ramesh Sonar, father of Ganesh, said today that his wife and another son, who were with the deceased when he was admitted to the hospital in Surat, have shown some symptoms of mild flu and have been hospitalised here.
"The hospital authorities were not telling us anything about their condition. The entire hospital has been cordoned off," he said.
Bureau Report
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articl...=276891&sid=REG
Navapur (Maha), Feb 20: The mother and brother of a 27-year-old man, who the authorities said died of "acute respiratory distress" and not because of Bird Flu, have shown symptoms of mild flu and have been hospitalised here.
Ganesh Bhai Ramesh Bhai Sonar, who hailed from Navapur, died yesterday in a hospital in neighbouring Surat and officials said his death was due to acute respiratory distress and was not related to the avian influenza.
They said he had "no exposure to poultry". Ramesh Sonar, father of Ganesh, said today that his wife and another son, who were with the deceased when he was admitted to the hospital in Surat, have shown some symptoms of mild flu and have been hospitalised here.
"The hospital authorities were not telling us anything about their condition. The entire hospital has been cordoned off," he said.
Bureau Report
New Freedom
Veteran Member
http://www.recombinomics.com/News/02190603/H5N1_North_America.html
Commentary
.
H5N1 Bird Flu in North America?
Recombinomics Commentary
February 19, 2006
59 samples from several species, including whooper (_Cygnus cygnus_) and mute swans (_Cygnus olor_), Canada geese (_Branta canadensis_), tufted ducks (_Aythya fuligula_) and a hawk (_Accipiter gentilis_).
Excessive viral loads indicated highly acute systemic infection. Sequencing of the HA proteolytical cleavage site showed a polybasic pattern (SPQGERRRKKR*GLF) indicative of highly pathogenic properties. Limited phylogenetic analysis of a 600 nt fragment of the HA gene revealed closest relationship with recent isolates from Romania, and, more distantly, with sequences from whooper swans of Lake Erkhul, Mongolia.
All positive cases are restricted to the island of Ruegen, where large numbers of migratory birds are wintering.
The above comments provide additional support for significant levels of the Qinghai strain of H5N1 in western Europe. The above list is limited to dead birds on Germany's Ruegen Island. Prior studies, including the OIE Mission Report indicated about two dozen species shot out of the sky in southern Siberia, carried H5N1 asymptomatically. These data, couple with the widespread detection of H5N1 in dead birds throughout western Europe suggest H5N1 was present in northern Siberia in the summer of 2005 and migrated to western Europe in the fall.
The number of reported die-offs were large (see December map), yet none of the EU countries detected H5N1 until very recently (see February map). Many reported Newcastle disease outbreaks, which are frequently cited in countries that subsequently become H5N1 positive. This linkage goes back to H5N1 in Indonesia and China in 2003 and 2004 and continues to the present. Many countries in the Middle East have also reported recent Newcastle Disease outbreaks, as has India.
The failure of these countries to detect H5N1 is cause for concern. The widespread reporting of H5N1 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India suggest surveillance in all of the recently reporting countries is poor. However, reporting in neighboring countries that have yet to confirm H5N1 is beyond poor.
The surveillance shortcomings likely extend to North America. If H5N1 was present in northern Siberia in the summer, it was probably also present in North America because of the connection via the East Atlantic Flyway. Canada did widespread testing on young ducks capture in August of 2005. The ducks were swabbed as part of the banding experiments and H5 was detected in all reporting Provinces. Although H%N1, H5N2, H5N3, and H5N9 were detected, all reported characterizations were of LPAI.
Since the collection were limit to young ducks in the south in August, H5N1 positive birds in the north may have been missed. However, these birds in the north as well as those banded in the south should have migrated into the United States as the temperature in Canada dropped, yet the United States has not reported H5 this season. These negative data raise serious questions about the surveillance systems in North America.
As the H5N1 positive birds in the East Atlantic Fly migrate north in the upcoming months, they will once again head for western Europe and eastern North America.
An evaluation of detection and reporting in western Europe and North America would be useful.
Commentary
.
H5N1 Bird Flu in North America?
Recombinomics Commentary
February 19, 2006
59 samples from several species, including whooper (_Cygnus cygnus_) and mute swans (_Cygnus olor_), Canada geese (_Branta canadensis_), tufted ducks (_Aythya fuligula_) and a hawk (_Accipiter gentilis_).
Excessive viral loads indicated highly acute systemic infection. Sequencing of the HA proteolytical cleavage site showed a polybasic pattern (SPQGERRRKKR*GLF) indicative of highly pathogenic properties. Limited phylogenetic analysis of a 600 nt fragment of the HA gene revealed closest relationship with recent isolates from Romania, and, more distantly, with sequences from whooper swans of Lake Erkhul, Mongolia.
All positive cases are restricted to the island of Ruegen, where large numbers of migratory birds are wintering.
The above comments provide additional support for significant levels of the Qinghai strain of H5N1 in western Europe. The above list is limited to dead birds on Germany's Ruegen Island. Prior studies, including the OIE Mission Report indicated about two dozen species shot out of the sky in southern Siberia, carried H5N1 asymptomatically. These data, couple with the widespread detection of H5N1 in dead birds throughout western Europe suggest H5N1 was present in northern Siberia in the summer of 2005 and migrated to western Europe in the fall.
The number of reported die-offs were large (see December map), yet none of the EU countries detected H5N1 until very recently (see February map). Many reported Newcastle disease outbreaks, which are frequently cited in countries that subsequently become H5N1 positive. This linkage goes back to H5N1 in Indonesia and China in 2003 and 2004 and continues to the present. Many countries in the Middle East have also reported recent Newcastle Disease outbreaks, as has India.
The failure of these countries to detect H5N1 is cause for concern. The widespread reporting of H5N1 in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and India suggest surveillance in all of the recently reporting countries is poor. However, reporting in neighboring countries that have yet to confirm H5N1 is beyond poor.
The surveillance shortcomings likely extend to North America. If H5N1 was present in northern Siberia in the summer, it was probably also present in North America because of the connection via the East Atlantic Flyway. Canada did widespread testing on young ducks capture in August of 2005. The ducks were swabbed as part of the banding experiments and H5 was detected in all reporting Provinces. Although H%N1, H5N2, H5N3, and H5N9 were detected, all reported characterizations were of LPAI.
Since the collection were limit to young ducks in the south in August, H5N1 positive birds in the north may have been missed. However, these birds in the north as well as those banded in the south should have migrated into the United States as the temperature in Canada dropped, yet the United States has not reported H5 this season. These negative data raise serious questions about the surveillance systems in North America.
As the H5N1 positive birds in the East Atlantic Fly migrate north in the upcoming months, they will once again head for western Europe and eastern North America.
An evaluation of detection and reporting in western Europe and North America would be useful.