SARS Doctor's opinion on Avian Flu

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Feels that the avian flu virus could strike the human population at any time.

 

Get prepared now.

 

SARS Doctor's Opinion on Avian Flu

 

 

New bird flu cases in Russia, China

 

20oct05

 

MOSCOW: The bird flu virus is continuing to spread rapidly with both Russia and China announcing new outbreaks yesterday.

 

Russia's Agricultural Ministry said the potentially fatal disease had been detected in poultry in the Russian province of Tula, west of the Ural mountains, apparently borne by wild ducks.

"Some 3000 fowl have been slaughtered in the village of Yandovka," some 300km east of Moscow, "after the discovery of bird flu in seven private farms", said Nikolai Vlasov, deputy head of the ministry's veterinary control department.

 

"We are practically sure that it is the same type as that diagnosed in Siberia," the H5N1 strain of bird flu that can be deadly to humans, he said.

 

Yesterday's announcement is the first time the agriculture ministry has confirmed the spread of bird flu west of Russia's Ural mountains.

 

"The infection has evidently been carried by wild ducks that recently landed on a lake in the village concerned," Mr Vlasov said.

 

The ministry had previously confirmed cases of bird flu in fowl in several Siberian provinces, apparently carried by migratory birds from Asia.

 

Authorities have culled hundreds of thousands of fowl and imposed numerous quarantine zones in a bid to wipe out the virus since its arrival in Siberia in the summer.

 

In China the national bird flu laboratory also confirmed an outbreak of the H5N1 strain yesterday - its first in more than two months. About 2600 birds had died from the disease, which broke out on a farm near the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohot, the Xinhua news agency reported.

 

The most recent confirmed case before this one was near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa in August, in which 133 birds died and another 2475 were slaughtered.

 

Both Chinese and Russian officials insisted that the outbreaks were local and had been contained with quarantine and disinfection measures.

 

The spread of bird flu from Southeast Asia to Russia, apparently carried by migratory birds, presaged more recent outbreaks in Europe.

 

A number of countries have imposed full or partial bans on bird product imports from Russia and Kazakhstan, where a bird flu outbreak was also recorded in the summer.

 

A Chinese doctor who became famous for his efforts to curb the SARS virus, warned last month that a global outbreak of bird flu could happen at any time.

 

A global flu epidemic strikes every 20 to 50 years, and it is now more than 20 years since the last outbreak, Zhong Nanshan, director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, told Xinhua.

 

Asia has been battling bird flu since late 2003, with vaccination campaigns and massive culls of tens of millions of chickens and ducks that have devastated poultry industries, particularly in Thailand and Vietnam.