FAO
Report 2010 23 March 2010, Rome
- An international team of experts has warned that while more is known
today about the role of wild birds in the spread of the highly
pathogenic H5N1 avian
influenza virus than ever before, significant information gaps
remain unfilled as government and public attention is shifting
elsewhere, "Unfortunately, H5N1 may have slipped off the radar screen
for some people, but it continues to be a major problem, especially in
Egypt and parts of Asia, where it is having a huge impact on food
security and the livelihoods of farmers and local communities,"
said Juan Lubroth, FAO's Chief Veterinary Officer. H5N1 HPAI is has not
been restricted to Asia alone, he added, having also occurred in Europe,
Central Asia and parts of AfricaIn the past six months, there have been
outbreaks of the virus in domestic poultry in Bangladesh, Cambodia,
Romania, Israel, Myanmar, Nepal, Egypt, Indonesia, India, and Viet Nam
and in wild birds in China, Mongolia, and the Russian Federation. Just
this week, Bhutan reported outbreaks for the first time and the virus
was detected after a three year absence in Romania in domestic poultry.
Poor farm biosecurity and trading of infected poultry are the main
causes of disease spread. Wild birds play a much smaller role in the
H5N1 HPAI ecology — but understanding their role in this disease,
and managing the associated risks, poses particular challenges.
Over the past five years some 750,000 healthy wild birds have been
tested for the H5N1 HPAI virus worldwide, either by national
authorities, NGO's, and international organizations like FAO.
Some expected that "wild reservoir" species — birds that can
carry and spread the virus without getting sick — would turn up during
this process. . .So far that hasn't been the case. Only an extremely small number of
apparently healthy infected wild birds have been found.This suggests that infection of domestic poultry from wild birds is rare
and the risk to humans from wild birds is negligible.
Romania
27 March 2010 Suspected H5N1 outbreak in Romania: A suspected bird flu outbreak has
been reported in a remote Romanian village, the Sanitary and Veterinary
Authority said on Saturday [27 Mar 2010]. Samples of 2 dead hens were
sent for confirmation of the potentially deadly H5N1 virus to the Animal
Health Institute in Bucharest and on to the Weybridge laboratory in
Britain, the Authority said. (See Mary Marshall's report on ProMEd)
Culling and vaccination will
not help after an outbreak. See the website of the NBvH, Holland
20 April 2007 When in an area with high density animal
production an outbreak occurs, culling nor emergency vaccination
will help. The disease will go faster than the cullers can work or the
vaccination can be effective.
Therefore the only alternative should be preventive vaccination.
Thus show the research
results by Wageningen University, Holland.
26 May 2007 Dutch
Ministry of Agriculture
http://hobbydierhouder.nl/content/blogcategory/23/54/
''Technocratically we organised disease control in the past well. But we
underestimated the people’s feelings.'' This was stated today by Harry
Paul, director of Food Safety and Animal health of the Ministry of
Agriculture, in a press interview. And of course he is talking about the hundreds
of thousands, even millions of animals that were slaughtered during the
Foot&Mouth- and bird flu-crises. Paul foresees vaccination against
contagious diseases in Europe to happen in the near future.
‘‘People no longer accept the killing of healthy animals. And we share
the same views'', says Paul, who (unfortunately) is leaving the department
next month. According to Harry Paul vaccination will be normal procedure
again in the near future. The consequences of the non-vaccination policy
in the past years have been too radical. He expects a significant
mitigation of the (almost impracticable) rules concerning vaccination of
hobby poultry against bird flu to be realized this year even. For Dutch
hobby holders the possibility of vaccination has not yet been used on a
large scale, mostly due to the fact that no guarantee was given that
vaccinated birds will be spared within the 1 km-zone. Paul expects this to
be solved in the next period of evaluation in Brussels. “In September
most likely birds will be locked up again and by that time we hope to have
solved most of the problems with the vaccination procedure. ”Also, a
bird flu vaccine will be available in the future to put in drinking water,
which will deduce the costs considerably. Such a vaccine (in combination
with NCD) has already been found and the first tests show such promise
that the scientist have published the results."
4
April 2007 The OIE recommends
vaccination as an additional tool to be used when relevant
along with the classical methods of disease eradication. The use of
vaccination is strongly recommended by the OIE in developing countries
with weak veterinary services where it may be difficult to control the
infection without vaccination. This means that middle- and long-term
policies based on vaccination are not sustainable. This is why the OIE
recommended that the international community support the strengthening of
Veterinary Services in 142 developing and in-transition countries in
parallel with emergency programmes including vaccination. Preventive
vaccination should preferably be based on risk assessment to determine the
right policy and the product to be used. Zoo
animals, pets and poultry that cannot be confined have to be considered
within this risk assessment.
Dr. David Swayne, director of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's poultry research laboratory in Athens, Ga.
USA
Wild birds are not major H5N1 carriers. They're the
sentinels. They're not the reservoir that's spreading it around. They're
infected because the poultry are infected... When you have an
outbreak, sometimes you don't really know what the cause was... Nobody's
going to be upset with you if you say wild birds http://www.drmartinwilliams.com/component/option,com_simpleboard/Itemid,137/func,view/id,242/catid,7/
4th March Article
2006: Say goodbye to cheap chicken Debora
Mackenzie in New Scientist Magazine issue 2541
DISASTER is looming for Europe's poultry.
The European Union has just had its first outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in
poultry, on a turkey farm in eastern France. It is unlikely to be the
last. The virus has now been found in wild birds across Europe, and as
spring migrants arrive from Africa virologists predict it could become
endemic in European wild birds within two months. http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bird-flu/mg18925413.700
March 2nd/3rd~ "To my understanding, there are no
'silent carriers'..." Another
email from the General Manager of Intervet UK casts serious doubt on
David King's reasons for dismissing vaccination.
"When our vaccine is used as recommended (2 doses
4-6 weeks apart) it prevents transmission of the disease, even with
the high challenges used experimentally..... infection...dies out - no
new birds get infected, and the few infected birds (which are not
clinically sick) recover and clear themselves of the infection. ..
what happened in Hong Kong during their outbreak - vaccination, as
part of a very stringent overall control program, stopped virus
circulation on infected premises from 18 days after the vaccination
started. Importantly, carriers were not found. These findings are
reported in the attached publication. (
"Vaccination of chickens against H5N1 avian influenza in the face
of an outbreak interrupts virus transmission" Avian
Pathology, August 2004 (opens in new window from the warmwell site )
The Times, Feb 22 2006 A solution any birdbrain
should see Magnus Linklater
THE GOVERNMENT’S response to the threat
of bird flu in Britain is heart-sinkingly predictable. As soon as the
first infected creature is identified, there will be mass slaughter around
the site where it is found. . .. Vaccination has been all but ruled out
— indeed there has been no attempt even to order up the vaccines that
other countries, like the Netherlands, are using. . . . . Vaccination
remains a theoretical option.
Well worth reading in full http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2051785,00.htm
20th Feb 2006 The
Independent: From
the Far East, a lesson in how to beat bird flu by Jeremy Laurance,
Health Editor, in Hanoi
As avian flu advances across Europe
towards the UK, public health experts in the Far East claimed the first
significant victory against the H5N1 virus since the current outbreak
began two years ago. Vietnam, the worst affected country in the world
with 93 human cases and 42 deaths, has become the first to successfully
contain the disease that threatens to become a global human pandemic,
according to the World Health Organisation. . . . Almost
200 million birds have been vaccinated, and up to five
million culled. The Government ordered last year that all chicken
prepared for sale must be certified safe and carry an official stamp,
although unstamped chicken and duck were still being sold in Hanoi . .
. Read more at
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article346511.ece
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