Title: H5N1 Wild Bird Flu Outbreak In Romania
H5N1 Wild Bird Flu Outbreak In Romania?
Recombinomics Commentary
October 7, 2005
Officials
have restricted access to a village in eastern Romania after three ducks were
found dead in the Danube delta and were being tested for bird flu, the
agriculture minister said.. Authorities restricted movement in and out of the village of Ciamurlia and banned the transport of animals
from the area, Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur
said.
We discovered today three cases of domestic
birds which were tested positive for the avian flu in the village of Ceamurlia de Jos in the Danube delta," Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur told reporters.
"There were three ducks in the yard of a peasant family."
The above comments from media reports strongly
suggest that H5N1 wild bird flu has been detected in Europe. Although not confirmed as
H5N1, the sending of samples for testing in England is a strong indication that
the bird flu is H5N1.
LPAI is not a reportable disease, but HPAI is.
The wild bird flu at Qinghai Lake and Chany Lake had the unusual property of causing fatal
infections in domestic ducks. These three deaths were
announced just after Russia announced the closing of their
largest poultry processing plant in Kurgen. The bird flu there has been
confirmed to be H5 and also is almost certainly H5N1.
Both of
these announcements signal the migration of birds out of southern Siberia and
into Europe.
Kurgen is at the base of the Urals and
although the two outbreaks are about 1200 miles apart (see map), they are likely related. Moreover, the areas between these two outbreaks are strongly suspect to
have H5N1 infected birds also, although none have confirmed outbreaks, there
was an earlier report of bird flu in Bulgaria. .
The detection of H5N1 on the western side of the Black Sea would signal H5N1 throughout much of Europe, even though the Asian version pf H5N1
has never been reported in Europe. A confirmation would indicate that H5N1 has
significantly expanded its geographical range and increased the likelihood of
recombination leading to an increased efficiency of transmission in
humans. The increase in Indonesia has already been noted, and there has been speculation that the
outbreaks have been triggered by migratory birds.
H5N1 in Europe would not be a surprise. The H5N1
from Qinghai Lake had European signatures as did the isolates from Chany Lake. However, in the past this exchange
of genetic information was facilitated by low pathogenic strains. The
current wild bird H5N1 however has the HPAI cleavage site from Asia, which is why its migration is clearly
marked by a trail of dead birds.
Although other countries in Europe have not reported H5N1, confirmation of H5N1 in Romania would likely trigger a series of similar
reports from many or most of the countries in Europe.
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