06/19 | Daily BF: Indonesian police asked to probe into death by bird flu in N Sumatr

Link to yesterday's thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=201083

Here is an important link...
Johns Hopkins on influenza: http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/33/450/Rashid Chotani.pdf

The Indonesian solution to BF cluster / outbreak

Indonesian police asked to probe into death by bird flu in N Sumatra​

Medan, N. Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Perjuangan Hukum Politik (PHP), a non-governmental organization fighting for political and legal rights, has asked the police to immediately mount a legal probe into the neglect of government medical personnel in the bird flu (avian influenza/AI) case in Karo regency, North Sumatera, which had caused the death of some people in the area.

The deaths were the result of confusion and different views of the medical personnel in charge of the bird flu attacking the area, President of PHP, HMK. Aldian Pinem, SH, MH, said here on Sunday.

The bird flu attacking Karo regency in May 2006 had killed seven residents, namely Fuji Br Ginting, Roy Karo-Karo, Boni Karo-Karo, Rafael Ginting, Anta Br Ginting, Brenata, and Does Ginting.

Pinem, who is also former chairman of IKADIN Medan office, said that the police based their investigation on articles 13 and 14 of Law no 2 of 2002 on the police and government responsible for medical personnel in charge of overcoming and eradicating bird flu.

In conducting the probe based on the Criminal Law Procedures, he said, PHP will help the investigators (Police) with summoning witnesses including the relatives as well as other members of the Karo community.

After dealing with the witnesses, the police will examine the medical personnel in charge in Karo regency, and in Jakarta.

Any of the medical personnel found guilty of violating article 359 of the Penal Code, like not quick enough in providing medication which caused death, will be held in police custody. (*) Jun 19 02:50

http://news.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=14665

UPDATED: 10:42, June 19, 2006

Second Canadian farm quarantined in bird flu probe​

A second farm in Canada's Prince Edward Island has been placed under quarantine after bird flu of H5 strain was found in goose in a farm in that province, authorities said on Sunday

Jim Clark, national manager of the avian influenza working group of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said in Ottawa they had not discovered any signs of bird flu on the farm under quarantine.

However, the CFIA decided to quarantine it as a precautionary measure because they found there had been movement of people and perhaps poultry between it and the farm where one of 11 geese died last Friday tested positive for an H5 virus, Clark said at a conference call with journalists.

Samples from the dead birds have been sent to the CFIA laboratory in Winnipeg in central Canada to determine whether the virus found in the dead goose was the deadly H5N1 strain. Notification of the result is expected early next week.

Source: Xinhua

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200606/19/eng20060619_275235.html

Shenzhen man bird flu confirmed​

Latest Updated by 2006-06-16 08:40:10

A 31-year-old man in south China's Guangdong Province has been confirmed to have contracted bird flu, bringing the country's total human infections of the disease to 19, reported the Chinese Ministry of Health on Thursday.

The patient, surnamed Jiang, is a migrant worker in Shenzhen City. He showed symptoms of fever and pneumonia on June 3 and has been hospitalized ever since.

He is now in critical condition, said the ministry in a report.

Epidemiological research found Jiang had been to a local market, where live poultry were sold, several times before developing the symptoms.

Jiang was tested H5N1 positive by the Shenzhen center for disease control and prevention (CDC) and the provincial and national CDCs.

He has been confirmed to be infected with bird flu in accordance with the standards of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Chinese government, said the ministry.

The ministry has reported the new case to the WHO, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, as well as several countries.

Jiang was reported by the local health authorities as a suspected case of bird flu on Tuesday. All 98 people who had close contact with Jiang tested negative for the disease, according to the local health bureau.

The health department in neighbouring Hong Kong on Tuesday warned the public to be vigilant against bird flu, while Macao announced on Wednesday it would halt the import of live poultry from Shenzhen.

Jiang is the 19th human case of bird flu reported in China. Among the previous 18 cases, 12 have died.

Globally, 225 human infections, including 128 deaths, have been recorded by the WHO, according to its official website.

Health experts fear the bird flu virus would mutate into a form that can easily pass between people, causing a global pandemic.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS

The Chinese government is "keeping a close eye on bird flu and has strengthened scientific research and nationwide surveillance," said Ministry of Health spokesman Mao Qun'an on Monday.

A Shanghai-based company was approved Tuesday by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) to produce the anti-flu drug Tamiflu. Tests showed the domestic Tamiflu was as effective and safe on humans as the imported version, said the SFDA.

Tamiflu is an anti-viral drug which is considered the most effective treatment available to counter the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that China has successfully developed three new bird flu vaccines and a new technology for diagnosing the disease.

The three new vaccines include the reverse genetics inactivatedvaccine (H5N1), H5N1 recombinant fowlpox vaccine, and recombinant bivalent avian influenza-Newcastle disease live vaccine.

If used together, the three vaccines "offer a solid technical guarantee for the Chinese government to effectively control the highly pathogenic avian influenza," the ministry said.

The newly developed rapid diagnostic strip for detecting H5 bird flu virus can detect the virus in 10 minutes.

WILD BIRDS TARGETED

China has reported more than 30 outbreaks of the flu in birds since last October. The latest bird flu outbreak occurred in remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region early this month.

China's chief veterinary officer Jia Youling on Thursday warned that bird flu is on the rise among migratory birds this year.

A total of 1,168 migratory birds had been found dead in Qinghaiand Tibet by June 1. The disease was striking more species of wild birds than last year, Jiang said, noting that the agricultural ministry would target migration paths for future supervision, especially in areas with a record of infection.

It will also study migration patterns of wild birds to prepare migration this autumn.

The Ministry of Agriculture issued an emergency order on Monday for local governments to tighten controls over poultry stocks to prevent bird flu contamination by migratory birds, calling for strict supervision of areas below all possible flight paths of migratory birds, lakes and other sites with a record of bird flu infection.

The ministry also ordered immediate reporting of any dead poultry or wild birds to county-level animal epidemic prevention agencies, and suspected cases must be reported to state-level bird flu laboratories.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Meanwhile, the Chinese government was working closely with international organizations to fight bird flu.

Last week, China joined in a pandemic response exercise in prevention and control of bird flu held by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), which is aimed to test the preparations of the organization's members in terms of information sharing, technological support and prevention of cross-border contamination.

On Tuesday, a center was set up by China and the WHO to fight infectious diseases including influenza.

The center, based in south China's Guangdong Province, will become a training base of southern provinces of China and may expand to become a training center for neighbouring countries, according to the WHO.

It will also work with the Guangdong CDC laboratory to detect emerging infectious diseases and carry out epidemiological research and study the origin of diseases that can be transmitted from animals.

Editor: Yan

http://www.newsgd.com/news/guangdong1/200606160010.htm

Experts descend on Jakarta to sort out bird flu outbreaks​

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=18496

An international team of experts are meeting in Jakarta this week to assess the avian flu situation in Indonesia.

Experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), UNICEF and agencies including the US and European centres for disease control will meet in Jakarta to look at the introduction of measures to reduce bird flu in Indonesia, where human cases of H5N1 infection have risen at a disturbing rate over the past year.

This follows the confirmation by the Ministry of Health in Indonesia of the country's 50th case of human infection with the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

The latest case was in a 7-year-old girl who developed symptoms on 26 May, was hospitalized on 30 May, and died on 1 June.

Her 10-year-old brother died of respiratory disease on 29 May, but no specimens were taken for testing and the cause of his death is undetermined.

An investigation has discovered a history of chicken deaths in the household and neighbourhood before the illness developed but laboratory tests of surviving family members and close contacts have revealed no further cases.

The experts are meeting as a result of a request from the Indonesian government, and is being welcomed as a sign that Indonesia is concerned about the threat posed by H5N1 both for its citizens and the global community.

The meeting comes as criticism of Jakarta's response to the H5N1 threat is growing, in particular its failure to control the spread of the virus in animals.

Many experts also say that while Indonesia continues to meet with international experts it is doing little to implement their recommendations.

It seems Indonesia's National Committee for Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Influenza Preparedness asked the WHO and its animal health counterpart, the Food and Agriculture Organization, to bring a variety of experts to Indonesia to study the scope of the problem and make recommendations on how best to deal with it.

Since Indonesia began reporting human cases of H5N1 last July, infections have been occurring at the rate of one a week on average and the WHO says they are concerned about cases which are turning up across a vast region and the number of clusters occurring.

To date of the 49 confirmed cases, 37 have died but a number of other people are suspected of having had the virus, but died and were buried or cremated before samples could be taken to test for infection.

Of the 10 countries that have recorded human cases of H5N1, Indonesia to date has had the second highest number of cases; only Vietnam exceeds that of Indonesia.

But Vietnam's efforts to combat the virus in poultry flocks appear to have been successful and the country has not reported a human case of H5N1 since last November.

Many of the Indonesian cases have occurred in clusters of two or three, although last month the largest cluster of cases seen to date, eight members of a single family, had health authorities around the world on alert.

The WHO suspects that particular cluster probably involved human-to-human-to-human spread, the first time such prolonged transmission is thought to have occurred.

Also of concern is the fact that many of the human cases in Indonesia have occurred in areas where no outbreaks of the virus have been reported in poultry.

Experts say that points to gaps in the country's veterinary surveillance capacity.

The lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread over the past two years from South East Asia to Europe the Middle East and west Africa, sparking fears of a global pandemic.

To date Indonesia and Vietnam have the highest number of cases of the deadly H5N1 virus accounting for 81 of the 123 confirmed human deaths from the virus since 2003 and of the 50 cases confirmed to date in Indonesia, 38 have been fatal.

Indonesia has apparently come under intense pressure at a donors' meeting in Vienna this month planned as a follow up on $1.9bn in pledges made in Beijing in January to help developing countries tackle H5N1.

A joint mission by the World Bank, FAO and WHO also offered 30 pages of recommendations for action by Jakarta in April.

Although a WHO official has said Indonesia has made progress in identifying and tackling human infection recently, there is a danger of stigmatising the country, suspicion on both sides appears to be contributing to a stalemate on how to finance Jakarta's plans.

Indonesia has asked for $900m over three years to help fight bird flu since the Beijing meeting, though western experts say a figure of $200m is more realistic.

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06180601/H5_Fatal_Canada_Broader.html


Commentary

H5 Positive Geese in Canada Lead to Broader Investigation

Recombinomics Commentary
June 18, 2006

A second Prince Edward Island farm has been placed under a quarantine order as a precautionary measure as authorities investigate the finding of an H5 avian flu virus in a domestic goose in that province.
An official of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the move was taken when investigators learned there was traffic of people and perhaps poultry between the two farms, which both had free-range backyard flocks.

Ottawa-based Dr. Jim Clark said no birds from the second farm have displayed signs of illness and for the time being, authorities have not ordered their destruction.

Clark, who is the national manager of CFIA's avian influenza working group, said a post-mortem examination of the goose that tested positive for the H5 virus did not reveal what killed the bird.

The above comments provide additional indications that the H5 detected on a backyard farm on Prince Edward Island is the Qinghai strain of H5N1. That strain is widely circulating in long trange migratory birds and is most likely to infect free range backyard flocks because of interactions between the wild and free range domestic birds.

Although low pathogenic H5 has been reported across southern Canada last year, the H5 detected was from healthy wild birds. The H5 was in swabs from health young birds that were being banded and released. This birds did not display signs of illness.

The H5 detection has led to increased surveillance and a low path H5N2 isolate was found in a duck at a processing plant. The OIE report of November 20, 2005 indicated

The suspect bird was a 40-day-old meat duck collected at processing. The bird was in excellent body condition with submitting criteria of dermatitis. No other visible lesions and no indication of any active disease process were observed on post-mortem examination.
That report specifically indicate that the post mortem gave no indication of active disease. The above media report merely stated that the post mortem did not reveal what killed the bird. It did not indicate an infectious process was ruled out.

If the H5 was coincidental the usual walk of the birds preceding their death might have been due to poisoning. However, the latest media report did not point in that direction.

The death of four birds by low path H5 would be unusual. Most waterfowl do not show ill effects from low path, and waterfowl frequently ho no signs of infection when infected with high path H5N1.

That is why the four dead geese with symptoms prior to death strongly point toward a highly pathogenic strain, such as Qinghai H5N1 bird flu. The delay in determining the pathogenicity is also of concern. The Asian strain of H5n1 is easily characterized by sequencing the HA cleavage site. Thos test is routine and diagnostic for high path. All H5 with a cleavage site of GERRRKKR has been the highly pathogenic H5N1 and almost all have been the Qinghai strain that is in long range migratory birds.

The four dead birds began showing symptoms on June 4, and died the next day. It is now almost two weeks since symptoms were observed yet no information on the HA cleavage site has been released. The delays in characterizing the cleavage site create addition cause for concern.

RI government 'not serious' in battling bird flu, expert says​

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060619181526&irec=1

JAKARTA (AP): Indonesia is failing to halt the spread of the potentially fatal strain of bird flu due to underfunding and sparse political will, a leading official said Monday.

Indonesia has recorded 37 human H5N1 fatalities out of 49 confirmed cases since July, the world's second highest death toll behind Vietnam, World Health Organization data indicates.

"They have the strategy, but there's no implementation," said Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, vice chairman of the Indonesian bird flu committee. The Indonesian government is "not serious about what's going on with avian influenza," she said.

Naipospos, who was fired last year by the Agriculture Ministry for her outspoken criticism of the government's handling of the disease, said one of the most urgent problems is a lack of coordination between departments.

The pre-emptive culling of suspected infected bird populations must be made a priority to stop transmission from birds to humans, she said.

"There's no other alternative" to destroying poultry flocks, she told the Jakarta Foreign Correspondent's Club.

A potentially successful program to vaccinate animals was failing due to insufficient spending and an acute shortage of doses of vaccination, she said. In 2005, there was no vaccine at all and the government is now trying to allocate 60 million dosesof vaccine in a country with 300 million backyard chickens.

Naipospos' latest criticism of the Indonesian response to the bird flu crisis will likely fuel perceptions that the country is a weak link in global efforts to prevent a H5N1 pandemic which could kill millions.

Bird flu has killed at least 128 people worldwide since it started ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003.

In December 2005, the Indonesian government unveiled an elaborate 2006-2008 anti-influenza plan, but the cash-strapped government has been unable to tackle its outbreak and prevent future human infections, analysts say.

"(Indonesia's) 2006 budget allocates just US$14 million to combat the disease, although the government's own estimate is that at least 30 times that amount would be prudent," said the Asian Development Bank's latest Development Outlook released in April.

Naipospos says the government's anti-H5N1 strategy is flawed by allocating only one-third of those funds to stopping the virus in poultry populations.

Cat infection by bird flu detected in Indonesia​

http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=16784

A case of cat infection by the H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected in Indonesia, a World Health Organization medical officer in Jakarta said Monday.

"We have evidence of one cat in Indonesia that has already been infected by this virus," said Steven Bjorge, medical officer for the WHO's Communicable Disease Section.

Bjorge, speaking in a panel discussion at the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents' Club, said he thinks the cat "was infected by probably eating contaminated birds."

"This is a very rare disease. It's extremely difficult for this virus to be passed on to humans," he said, downplaying concerns about cross-species transmission of the virus.

There are no recorded cases of cat-to-human H5N1 infection anywhere in the world.

Trisatya Naipospos, the government's top adviser on H5N1 strategy, told the panel there have been unpublished studies of other cats in Indonesia being tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

There have been a number of cases of feline infection by the dangerous H5N1 strain of avian flu outside of Indonesia, all of which appear to have been associated with outbreaks in domestic or wild birds and acquired through ingestion of raw meat from an infected bird.

In December 2003, two tigers and two leopards that were fed with fresh chicken carcasses died of H5N1 infection at a zoo in Thailand. In October 2004, 147 of 441 captive tigers in another zoo in Thailand died or were euthanized as a result of infection after being fed with fresh chicken carcasses.

Civet cats have died of bird flu in Vietnam, while earlier this year a domestic cat in Germany became the first case of a European Union mammal dying of bird flu.

There have also been cases of martens, pigs and ferrets being infected.

Naipospos genetic analysis shows the virus isolated from humans is exactly the same as that found in birds, "so we can say here now that our problem is still with birds, with poultry."

Indonesia's Health Ministry says the WHO has confirmed 52 cases of humans infected by bird flu in Indonesia, of which 39 resulted in death. But the WHO says there have been 50 cases with 38 deaths in the country.

In explaining the discrepancy, Bjorge said the WHO and the Health Ministry use a "different definition" as to what constitutes a confirmed case of bird infection. He said the organization will later revise its definition to avoid such discrepancies in the future.

H5N1 Infected Cat Indentified in Indonesia
​

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/06190601/H5N1_Indonesia_Cat.html

Recombinomics Commentary
June 19, 2006

A CAT has been found infected with the deadly H5N1 virus in Indonesia, in the first such case in the country.

Steven Bjorge, Medical Officer for Communicable Disease of the World Health Organisation said the cat was infected after having eaten contaminated birds.

"We have evidence from one cat in Indonesia that has already been infected by this virus," he told Jakarta's Foreign Correspondents' Club.

The above description of an H5N1 bird flu infected cat in Indonesia would appear to be the cat described by Andrew Jeremijenko. That cat isolate has been sequenced and it is closely related to the human isolates from West Java, which included Tangerang, Jakarta and regions to the east of Jakarta such and Bekasi and Bandung.

Although these isolates are closely related to bird isolates from Indonesia, they have a novel cleavage site, RESRRKKR. This sequence is in the human and cat isolates, but has not been reported in bird isolates. The H5N1 bird isolates in Indonesia have the common H5N1 cleavage site RERRRKKR, indicating that they were not a source of the human or cat infections. Thus, the above comment that the cat infection was due to consumption of a contaminated bird is curious. If true, the bird isolate should have the novel cleavage site.

Recently new bird sequences from H5N1 infected birds on Bali were released. They too did not have the novel Indonesian HA cleavage site, although one did have the Qinghai cleavage site, GERRRKKR. This sequence has been found in almost all Qinghai isolates, including those from humans. In China, human cases have yet another cleavage site, RERRRK_R, which is missing a K. This sequence has also been found in birds isolates from Fujian province, and more recently from Laos and Malaysia. Most other human cases (including isolates from Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia) have the wild type H5N1 sequence, first identified in a goose from Guangdong in 1996.

The correspondence is also found in H5N1 cat isolates from other countries. The HA cleavage site sequence in the cat isolate from Thailand. A/cat/Thailand/KU-02/04, was RERRRKKR, match human and poultry isolates from the region. The cat isolate in Iraq, A/domestic cat/Iraq/820/2006, had a sequence of GERRRKKR, matching human and poultry isolates in Iraq. However, the cat H5N1 cleavage site in Indonesia only matches the human isolates. Reported bird H5N1 cleavage sites have been limited to the two examples above, RERRRKKR and GERRRKKR.

Thus, the linkage of human, cat, and poultry cases in other countries strongly suggest that the RESRRKKR is not an adaptation that happens after human infections, but instead reflects the sequence of the infecting H5N1.

Thus far all of the reported RESRRKKR sequences have been from mammals.

China reports new bird flu outbreak in poultry​

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-06/19/content_620828.htm

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-06-19 20:11

A new bird flu outbreak has been reported in north China's Shanxi Province, said sources with the Ministry of Agriculture here Monday.

The outbreak was identified after chickens died in poultry farms in Changzi County of Changzhi City.

Samples of the dead poultry were sent to the national bird flu laboratory and the H5N1 virus was identified in them, said the ministry.

The local government has launched an emergency response and quarantined the infected area. Experts and veterinarians have started disinfection and culling poultry in the area to prevent possible new outbreaks.

The local veterinarian department has stepped up publicity campaigns to teach residents how to protect themselves against the virus.

The Ministry of Agriculture has also sent a team of experts to Changzi and reported the case to international organizations.

China has recorded more than 30 outbreaks of bird flu since last October. The last outbreak occurred in remote Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region early this month and the government said it was contained two days after the confirmation.

A human case of bird flu was confirmed on June 15 in south China's Guangdong Province, bringing the country's total human infections to 19.

China's chief veterinary officer Jia Youling warned last week that the virus was on the rise among migratory birds this year.

A total of 1,168 migratory birds had been found dead in Qinghai and Tibet by June 1. The disease was striking more species of bird than last year, Jia said, noting the Ministry of Agriculture would target migration paths for future supervision, especially in areas with a record of infection.

Poultry farmers warned to move millions of birds​

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/n...=154f8f91-1727-423e-bbe5-b95a8d7054e8&k=21850

Fraser Valley farms targeted in plan to halt further outbreaks

Chad Skelton, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, June 19, 2006

The best way to protect B.C.'s $400-million poultry industry from being devastated by another bird-flu outbreak is for farmers to move millions of their birds out of the high-density Fraser Valley, an official with the Agriculture Ministry advised his superiors in an e-mail last year.

"The B.C. poultry industry needs to investigate a risk-management strategy to move [some birds] to locations outside the Fraser Valley," Stewart Paulson, a poultry industry specialist with the B.C. government, wrote in an e-mail on May 27, 2005. "Such location strategies may prove effective to reduce the cost of an outbreak and [improve] the speed of recovery."

Paulson's e-mail -- obtained by The Vancouver Sun through the Freedom of Information Act -- was sent to several senior officials in the ministry, including Chief Veterinarian Ron Lewis and Harvey Sasaki, assistant deputy minister for risk management.

In 2004, a massive outbreak of bird flu in the Fraser Valley led to the culling of 17 million birds -- at a cost of $60 million in federal government compensation to farmers.

And in November, after Paulson's e-mail was written, a second outbreak of bird flu at two farms in the valley led to the culling of more than 60,000 birds.

Flocks of birds raised for meat -- known as "broilers" -- are relatively cheap and can easily be restored after an outbreak because they usually only live a few weeks before slaughter.

What made the 2004 outbreak so costly is that the federal government also had to compensate farmers for so-called "high value" birds -- breeders and egg-layers that can live for up to a year and "specialty" breeders like ducks and geese.

In his e-mail, Paulson said the poultry industry should be encouraged to move its breeding and egg-laying operations outside the Fraser Valley, leaving only those birds intended for slaughter -- a move that would greatly reduce the costs of any future outbreak.

"If the broiler industry was infected it could be brought back up quite rapidly and inexpensively due to the short life cycle and short replacement delays," he wrote. "However, when long life cycle birds are depopulated, the forgone revenues . . . lead to huge costs for cleanup and compensation . . . and the replacement period extends over several years."

In an e-mail back to Paulson, Sasaki said he agreed the poultry industry should be decentralized but warned the government should not take the lead.

"Your assessment of risk is right on," wrote Sasaki. "However, it is not prudent for us as government to be encouraging industry to relocate as the next step would be industry coming back with requests for funding to relocate."

In an interview Wednesday, B.C. Agriculture Minister Pat Bell said he's asked the poultry industry to examine the feasibility of moving some of its operations to other parts of the province.

"It is somewhat logical from my perspective that if you have 17 million birds in a relatively confined area that your risk would increase in terms of potential for a significant outbreak," he said.

B.C. Poultry Association president Ray Nickel said having all segments of the poultry industry in one place is cost-efficient and said he doubts farmers would be willing to move birds out of the Fraser Valley.

"Realistically, to decentralize is probably not possible -- unless the provincial government is willing to buy everybody up," he said.

Bell refused to say if the government would help pay for such a move.

Symptoms warning

Very specific warnings from this article on Canada ...

http://www.birdflubreakingnews.com/...com/wpvi/story?section=healthcheck&id=4284759

Excerpt from above article:

"The chief health officer for PEI, Prince Edward Island, says there's no reason to expect anyone will become ill, but he wants people to be aware of the symptoms.

Dr. Lamont Sweet. " IF ANYONE HAS HAD ANY PARTICULAR CONTACT WITH SICK, DYING OR ILL POULTRY IN THE LAST WEEK, EITHER DOMESTIC OR WILD BIRDS, AND ARE NOW XPERIENCEING SORE EYES, A FEVER, OR COUGH THAT HAS COME ON IN THE LAST SEVEN DAYS, IT'S ADVISABLE THEY BE SEEN BY A PHYSICIAN." "

Interesting discussion

Take a look at post #113 listing the Canadian testings/positives ... have no idea where the info came from though ...

http://www.curevents.com/vb/showthread.php?p=453320#post453320

U.S. trains foreign scientists in bird-flu testing​

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/ne...R_RTRJONC_0_India-255653-1.xml&archived=False

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two dozen scientists from 19 countries will be trained this week by the U.S. Agriculture Department in diagnostic testing for bird flu, the department said on Monday.

The one-week session at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, is the third in a series of "train the trainers" workshops devoted to testing for and diagnosis of the highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Ron DeHaven, head of USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the goal was to prepare senior-level veterinarians and poultry-disease experts to train colleagues in lab procedures and protocols.

This week's group of 24 scientists come Argentina, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burma, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Lebanon, Libya, Mexico, Mozambique, Oman, Pakistan, Romania, Sudan, Taiwan, Uganda and Uruguay.

USDA said a total of 51 scientists from 34 countries attended two earlier sessions. Some nations, such as Indonesia and Bangladesh, took part in more than one session.

Beee-

The report referenced on that thread was from 2005. The 2006 report is not available yet.

Link to tomorrows (6/20) Bird Flu thread: http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=201387

Adgal ... not so sure

She mentions though there had just been an update???