- Please check out the map at the URL provided below.
The map does show the progress of H5N1 from Asia into Russia and approaching
Europe.
-
- Patty
-
- (Pro Med Mail - As the H5N1 avian influenza virus has
spread thoughout Asia, our posts on non-humans have spread to different
threads for different geographical areas and different avian species.
In order to simplify the threads we are starting a new unifying thread,
"Avian influenza - Asia", which will encompass much of what before
had been in an ever increasing number of threads. - Mod.DK)
-
-
-
- Russia Says Dangerous Bird Flu Outbreak Spreads
-
- By Guy Faulconbridge
8-17-5
-
- (Reuters) -- Russia said on Tuesday (8-16-5] an outbreak
of bird flu in Chelyabinsk was dangerous to humans, as teams of sanitary
workers destroyed birds [domestic? wild? - see comment] in Siberia in an
attempt to prevent the westward spread of the deadly virus.
-
- The H5N1 strain of bird flu is behind the outbreak in
Chelyabinsk, a city in the Ural mountains, the Emergencies Ministry said
in a statement.
-
- It said no cases among humans have been confirmed in
Russia.
-
- "Measures are being taken to prevent the spreading
of the infection among domestic birds and to exclude the possibility of
the infection moving to humans," the statement added. Russia is battling
to contain a bird flu outbreak, which top health officials say has killed
more than 11 000 birds countrywide and could spread westwards to Europe,
the Middle East and Africa.
-
- The outbreak was discovered in mid-July 2005 in Novosibirsk
and has spread through Tyumen, Omsk, Kurgan, Altai and now Chelyabinsk,
which is about 1000 km (600 miles) from Novosibirsk.
-
- Senior agricultural officials believe the flu was brought
by migrating birds from Asia, where more than 50 people have died from
the deadly H5N1 strain since 2003.
-
- Officials fear that the virus could spread to Europe
and Africa as tens of millions of birds continue their migration to warmer
climates from next month ahead of Russia's harsh winter.
-
- Chelyabinsk lies in the Ural mountains, the geographic
divide between Asia and Europe. Russia's top state epidemiologist, Gennady
Onishchenko, said migratory birds move on to warmer areas in southern Russia,
Africa and Europe in the autumn after nesting in Siberia.
-
- But the diversity of Siberia's bird species makes plotting
the flight paths of the birds difficult, specialists in Moscow said.
-
- "There are about 800 different species of birds
in Russia and so there are many different migration flows which criss-cross
Russian territory," said Dr. Pavel Tomkovich, a senior ornithologist
at Moscow's Zoological Museum.
-
- He said water fowl will leave to winter in warmer climates,
flying through Russia's southern regions, northern Kazakhstan, the Caspian
and Black seas towards the Mediterranean and north Africa. That would/could
take infected birds through Russia's agricultural heartland in the south.
-
- Health officials were meeting in Moscow on Tuesday to
discuss the situation, the state's consumer watchdog said.
-
- In parts of Chelyabinsk, barriers were placed on roads
and local officials imposed a ban on the sale of all poultry products,
the Itar-Tass news agency reported. Farmers are being compensated for birds
which were being destroyed, the agency said.
-
- Bird flu comes in different stains, such as H5 and H7,
which have 9 different subtypes. The H5N1 subtype is highly pathogenic
and can be passed from birds to humans, though there have been no cases
of human-to-human transmission.
-
- Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova
-
-
- Avian Flu Spreads Westward In Russia
-
- CIDRAP News
8-15-5
-
- Avian influenza has cropped up in chickens near Russia's
Ural Mountains, possibly signaling a continued westward march of the deadly
H5N1 virus, news services in Russia reported today.
-
- The Chelyabinsk region along the southern end of the
Urals is the 6th area in Russia to have been hit by avian flu outbreaks
recently, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters. The Urals
separate Siberia from European Russia.
-
- A regional official said 60 chickens in the village of
Oktyabrskoye died over the weekend, according to an online report by Mosnews.com.
The report said testing had detected an H5N1 virus in the dead birds. However,
the AFP and Reuters reports said it was not yet known if the virus was
H5N1.
-
- Other parts of southwestern Siberia that have reported
recent outbreaks of avian flu include Novosibirsk, Altai, Omsk, Tyumen,
and Kurgan, all to the east of Chelyabinsk, according to AFP. But the H5N1
strain has been identified only in the Novosibirsk, Altai, and Omsk outbreaks,
the report said.
-
- The Siberian outbreaks have killed 10 896 wild and domestic
birds, according to an RIA Novosti news agency report quoted by AFP. Hundreds
of thousands of birds have been culled since the 1st in the series of Russian
outbreaks was reported in Novosibirsk on 21 Jul 2005, according to Mosnews.com.
No human cases have been reported.
-
- Russia's top government epidemiologist, Gennady Onischenko,
warned that migrating birds could spread avian flu to Russia's major agricultural
region and on to the Middle East and Mediterranean Sea this fall.
-
- "An analysis of bird migration routes has shown
that the contagious A (H5N1) virus may spread from western Siberia to the
Caspian and Black Sea areas this fall," said Onischenko, as quoted
by an RIA Novosti report today. "Some birds nesting in the affected
regions (the Novosibirsk and Altai territory) migrate to the above-mentioned
areas for winter or stop there on their way to Africa or Europe."
-
- He added that bird migration routes run through Azerbaijan,
Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, and Mediterranean countries, raising a risk
of outbreaks there as well, according to the story. Onischenko made the
statements in a letter to regional directors of the Federal Service for
the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare.
-
- Russia's Agriculture Ministry said all sick and infected
birds in Chelyabinsk were being destroyed, and Russian media reported that
roads leading to the affected village were cordoned off in an effort to
contain the outbreak, according to Reuters.
-
- A Russian agricultural official said the Chelyabinsk
outbreak is near a lake that borders the Kurgan region and Kazakhstan,
where other avian flu outbreaks have been reported recently, according
to the Mosnews.com report.
-
- Meanwhile, a Russian journalist named Maria Pashkova,
who was hospitalized after visiting an area affected by avian flu, has
been tested for the illness, according to an RIA Novosti report today.
Results of the test are expected later this week.
-
- Mosnews.com reported that Pashkova had already recovered
from her illness. 4 other Russians were hospitalized with suspected avian
flu recently, but all 4 tested negative, the RIA Novosti story said.
-
- http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/
influenza/avianflu/news/aug1505avian.html
-
- ProMED-mail
-
- In the absence of an official OIE update since 5 Aug
2005, it is not clear what measures are currently being undertaken by the
Russian authorities to control the disease within the 5 regions (oblasts)
situated west of the 1st affected region, Novosibirsk, and to prevent its
further spread. It would also help to know if virological/serological surveillance
in wildfowl is being undertaken. - Mod.AS
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?
- Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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