Culling Poultry - Photo Credit CCTV
# 7085
After finding H7N9 positive chickens and pigeons at a live market in Shanghai two days ago, authorities 100 km to the Southwest in Hangzhou are now reporting positive tests among quail as well.
Quails test positive for H7N9
04-06-2013 14:27 BJT
Chinese health authorities say they’ve detected the new H7N9 virus in quails, at a live poultry market in eastern city of Hangzhou. One of the people infected with the new bird flu strain is thought to have eaten quails brought from the same market. Health officials have now sent the virus sample to China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, for further analysis. The local government carried out a cull of all live birds at the market early on Saturday, and the market has now been banned from trading in live birds.
Interestingly, the history of H5N1 bird flu infection among pigeons, doves, and quail (all family Columbidae) has been mixed, and not without controversy.
I've written about the fear that pigeons might be vectors for the bird flu virus several times, including in The Origins Of The Feces in December of 2006, and a year later in The Latest Poop On Pigeons.
Around the world, opinions vary over the threat these city dwellers present. In Bangladesh pigeons, along with ducks and chickens, are routinely culled in their fight against bird flu. While in Saudi Arabia, they’ve claimed that pigeons are immune to the disease.
That may be a bit optimistic, since in May of 2007, in the CDC's EID Journal , a dispatch appeared called Avian Influenza (H5N1) Virus in Waterfowl and Chickens, Central China, where scientists deliberately infected a variety of birds to determine their susceptibility to the H5N1 virus.
Their study suggested that pigeons may be asymptomatic carriers of the H5N1 avian flu virus.
Another study, from later that year, titled Role of Terrestrial Wild Birds in Ecology of Influenza A Virus (H5N1) found that:
Least susceptible were pigeons, which had no deaths and very low levels of virus in oropharyngeal and cloacal swabs.
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Because pigeons shed only low amounts of virus upon infection and they did not transmit to contact birds, their role in the ecology of influenza (H5N1) virus may be minor.
Up until now, we haven't seen more than a few pigeon, dove, or quail related bird flu stories.
- In 2012 (see WHO Updates H5N1 In Egypt & Indonesia), two human H5N1 deaths in Indonesia were linked to direct contact with pigeons.
- In February of 2006, a 14 year-old pigeon handler in Iraq reportedly died from H5N1
- The April 2006 CDC's EID Journal Avian Influenza H5N1 in Naturally Infected Domestic Cats, describes a domestic cat that died after eating an infected pigeon.
- In May of 2006, a 39 year-old man died after reportedly cleaning pigeon feces from blocked roof gutters at his home.
The fact that pigeons and quail are being looked at as possible vectors of the H7N9 virus is another example of how this new flu differs from its more famous bird flu cousin.
