#247
Today there are a couple of intriguing stories in play, and as of this writing, we don’t know exactly how they will turn out. A brief tour ensues.
Duck Die - Off in Idaho Sparks Fears
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 14, 2006
Filed at 3:38 a.m. ET
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- More than 1,000 mallard ducks have died in a bizarre cluster along a southeastern Idaho creek bed, puzzling wildlife agencies.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were testing tissue samples Wednesday, hoping to rule out an avian flu outbreak.
Read more here.
While bird die-offs are not unusual, and are often caused by factors less worrisome than the H5N1 virus, this story has captured the attention of flu watchers because the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been repeatedly linked to the investigation.
This would seem to be an unusual step, and is one that frankly I haven’t heard about before. Perhaps it is indicative of nothing more than an abundance of caution on the part of authorities, but this story bears watching.
Low pathogenic H5N1 bird flu is nothing new in the North American Continent. But generally, birds don’t die from that. When we see large bird kills, the worry becomes that a highly pathogenic strain has appeared, and that would send shockwaves through our domestic poultry industry.
We’ve been told it was just a matter of time before the high path virus would make an appearance. Whether this is it, only time and testing will tell. There are numerous other things that this could be. Botulism is a common pathogenic killer of ducks, and pesticides and other farm chemicals could be to blame.
Until we know, though, the eyes of the flu world are focused on this situation.
Next stop, Singapore, where an international conference of renown scientists are meeting to discuss the H5N1 avian flu threat. This report from Bloomberg.
Disease Trackers Miss Flu Cases By Testing Birds at `Wrong End'
By John Lauerman
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Disease trackers in countries including the U.S. are missing bird flu cases when they test only fecal samples without checking the mouth for the virus, a top researcher said today.
Birds that show no avian influenza in standard fecal and rectal exams may be able to spread the virus on their breath, said Robert Webster, a bird flu expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Experiments by Erasmus University virologist Albert Osterhaus and Webster show that H5N1-infected birds may have as much as 10 times more virus in their upper airways than in their excrement.
(Snip)
Potentially dangerous new mutations that might give H5N1 the ability to spread among people are cropping up in birds, and perhaps other species including cats and dogs, said Ron Fouchier, also an Erasmus virologist, at the conference.
``We've been hearing about hundreds of reports of dead cats from Indonesia,'' Fouchier said today in an interview. ``We've also had several reports of infected dogs from countries of the former Soviet Republic.''
The upshot here is that the H5N1 virus is changing, or mutating, at an astounding rate. It acts less and less like an avian flu virus every day. It has apparently continued to acquire an appetite for mammalian species, such as cats and dogs, and that is worrisome. We've had scattered reports of infected cats and dogs before, but nothing of this magnitude.
It generally takes a few days for news to filter out of these conferences.
Hopefully, we will learn more about these, admittedly disturbing statements, in the coming days.
