Conditions there –
difficulty in quickly learning about infestations and enforcing culling, quarantines
- are a ripe breeding ground for the pandemic to mutate to a human virus. - kwc
Bird Flu Going to East
Africa, United Nations Officials Fear
As bird flu has jumped this year from Southeast Asia to China,
Russia, Kazakhstan and - more recently - into the Balkan region of Europe,
scientists have become somewhat belatedly convinced that wild migratory birds
are one of the main carriers of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. Although there is widespread anxiety about the arrival of
bird flu in Europe - European Union health ministers will convene a special
session on Thursday to discuss the problem - the next stops on bird migratory
paths are not in Western Europe, but in the Middle East, North Africa and East
Africa, United Nations officials here say. Countries and farmers in these parts of the world,
particularly in East Africa, are completely unprepared, lacking the money and
the scientific infrastructure to control outbreaks of the virus, the United
Nations officials said. "One
of our major concerns is now the potential spread of avian influenza through
migratory birds to north and eastern Africa," said Dr. Joseph Domenech,
chief veterinary officer at the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization, which monitors the flu's spread in animals. If the disease touches down there, it could become widespread
in the environment and on farms before it is even detected, he said. Also, because in poorer African nations people live in
proximity with animals, such a situation would provide a dangerous crucible for
the mixing of the bird and human viruses, vastly increasing the risk that the
avian virus could gain the ability to readily spread among humans. "The close proximity between
people and animals and insufficient surveillance and disease control capability
in eastern African countries create an ideal breeding ground for the
virus,"
Dr. Domenech said. While the H5N1 strain does not readily infect humans or
spread between them, scientists fear that it could acquire that ability through
biological mixing
processes by which viruses can exchange genes if they are close together. If the H5N1 strain was capable of
spreading from human to human, they say, it could be the source of a human flu pandemic.
In developed nations, bird flu outbreaks are controlled by
aggressive public health measures. Once the virus is suspected - usually
signaled by unusual bird deaths - it is then stamped out by preventive culls
and quarantines, even before its presence is confirmed. In Macedonia, for
example, health authorities were killing 10,000 birds in a small southern
village today as they waited for tests in Britain, to confirm that the H5N1
strain was involved. Another possible outbreak was reported in the Tula region
in Russian. In the first large bird flu outbreak, in Hong Kong in 1997, one
million birds were killed in a day to stop the disease. But such a procedure, which is extremely effective at
controlling bird flu, would be difficult in Africa, United Nations officials
said. Farmers have to
report suspicious deaths quickly to health authorities, who need to be poised
for immediate investigation and killing. Mandatory culls are problematic in poor countries, where a
family's chickens are often not just a commercial product, but also a crucial
source of food. "In birds this is a disease of biblical proportions
and it is difficult to control in a setting where people depend on poultry as a
major source of protein for growing children," said Dr. Mike
Ryan, director of surveillance and response at the World Health Organization in
Geneva. The deadly strain of avian influenza is widespread in
Southeast Asia. But compliance with culls has been sometimes difficult in
poorer areas. Poor farmers may choose not to report deaths for fear of losing
their birds. Worse, they may slaughter sick birds before health authorities
confiscate them, to eat the birds or to sell them at local markets. Eating
meat from birds infected with the virus is not dangerous, because it is not a
food-borne illness and dies with cooking. But touching the birds may infect
humans. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/international/africa/20flu.html |
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