# 872
Poultry have traditionally provided a pretty good sentinel warning because they die quickly when exposed to highly pathogenic H5N1. This alerts us that there is a problem. Extra precautions are put in place, and culling is instituted to eradicate the disease.
We've known that some waterfowl apparently can carry the virus without ill effect, but poultry are generally assumed to be rapidly killed when infected. At least until now.
Bird flu-infected chickens in Indonesia showing no symptoms
The Associated Press
Published: June 11, 2007
JAKARTA, Indonesia: Chickens infected by bird flu in Indonesia are now mostly symptom-free, confounding efforts to fight the virus in the world's hardest hit country, an Agriculture Ministry official said Monday.
"It's really giving us a headache," said Musni Suatmodjo, the director of animal health. "Chickens are testing positive for the H5N1 virus, but they are staying healthy" making it difficult to identify which are infected.
Bird flu has killed at least 189 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, 79 of them in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.
The virus remains difficult for people to catch, but experts fear it could eventually mutate to a form that spreads more easily between humans, sparking a global pandemic that could kill millions.
John Weaver, of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, noted that several researchers have said many infected chickens appear to be surviving in Indonesia, triggering questions about whether the virus may have become less pathogenic.
"It's a very important question," he said on the sidelines of an international bird flu conference in the capital Jakarta. "But we haven't yet answered it."
Recently we've seen more and more cases of human infection where there has been no link to obviously sick or dying poultry. This opens the question as to where people are contracting the virus. Are there other, as yet, unknown vectors? Or are healthy appearing chickens silently spreading the disease?
Again, the H5N1 virus is throwing us curves that no one really expected.
