- "However, all available evidence
suggests that swine play no role in the transmission of the current strain
of H5N1 avian flu virus. Swine sera are difficult to examine and results
need to be confirmed by additional tests in a reference laboratory that
can carry out validated tests for influenza antibodies in swine. - Mod.CP"
-
- In this statement located at the end
of the summary below, the Moderator claims that swine played no role in
transmission of current strain of H5N1 viruss in the Indonesian human cases.
However, according to the Moderator, additional tests need to be carried
out. Swine sera are difficult to examine and results need to be confirmed
by additional tests. This sounds as though the verdict is out...until
these additional tests are completed.
-
- Patricia
-
-
- New Avian Cases Of H5N1 In
8 Siberian Villages
- RIA Novosti
- 5-27-6
-
- New cases of bird flu have been registered
in 8 villages in 3 Siberian regions, the agriculture ministry said Friday.
-
- "Fowl infected with avian influenza
have been registered in 3 villages in Novosibirsk Region, 4 villages in
Omsk Region, and one village in Altai Territory," the ministry said
in a statement.
-
- None of the infected birds had been vaccinated
against the disease, the ministry said.
-
- The Emergency Situations Ministry said
in April 2006 that around 1.1 million birds had died of the disease in
Russia, and that 300 000 had been culled in measures to control the spread
of the virus since the beginning of February.
-
- No human cases of bird flu have yet been
diagnosed in Russia.
-
- http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060526/48645365.html
-
- ProMED-mail
- promed@promedmail.org
-
-
- [2] Nigeria - New Outbreak
Confirmed
- Xinhua
- 5-25-6
-
- The Nigerian Veterinary Research Institute
(NVRI) on Thursday [25 May 2006] confirmed another outbreak of bird flu
at a poultry farm in Kakara village in the northern state of Kano.
-
- Timothy Obi, leader of the Avian Influenza
task force team of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), told reporters
that the institute said it had diagnosed samples of dead chickens from
the farm and found them to be infected with the deadly H5N1 virus.
-
- An official at the Avian Influenza Crisis
Management Center who preferred anonymity also confirmed the outbreak.
-
- "The virus was detected on Monday
among the over 16 000 chickens on the farm," he said, adding that
11 samples of the dead chickens from the farm were taken to the NVRI for
laboratory analysis which later confirmed the virus.
-
- Malam Mohammed Aminu Adamu, chairman
of Kano Branch of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), said that already
all birds at Omatiga farm where the outbreak occurred have been culled
while the farm had been decontaminated to curtail possible spread.
-
- According to a source at the Federal
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the government is worried
at the resurgence of the disease in Kano, a month after it was declared
free of the virus was worrisome.
-
- The source said the government, the Nigeria
Veterinary Council and the FAO officials were intensifying their surveillance,
while the NVRI was continuing with the task of finding ways to stamp out
the deadly disease.
-
- The outbreak of avian influenza, otherwise
known as bird flu, was first confirmed in the country on 7 Feb 2006. But
so far no human being has been infected.
-
- http://english.people.com.cn/200605/26/eng20060526_268732.html
-
-
- West Java - Brother And Sister
Die Of H5N1 In Indonesia
- Jakarta Post Online
- 5-27-6
-
- Preliminary tests have found that avian
influenza has killed 2 more siblings in Indonesia, officials said on Fri
26 May 2006, as the country grapples with a separate outbreak involving
the largest family cluster ever reported.
-
- Local tests found that a brother and
sister from West Java who died earlier this week were infected by the H5N1
virus, said Nyoman Kandun, head of the Health Ministry's office of communicable
disease control. The tests will be sent to a World Health Organization
laboratory for further confirmation. WHO officials so far have confirmed
33 human deaths from bird flu in Indonesia, out of 124 worldwide. The latest
victims, an 18-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister, died on Tue 23
May 2005 in the state-run Hasan Sidikin hospital in Bandung, the capital
city of West Java, said Achmad, an official at the Ministry's special task
force post for bird flu, who uses only one name. They died within hours
of each other less than a day after arriving at the hospital, he said.
-
- The newest cases come as Indonesia is
struggling with a different family cluster in northern Sumatra where 6
of seven family members died of bird flu, the most recent on Mon 22 May
2006. An 8th family member who died was buried before tests could be done,
but she was also considered to be among those infected with bird flu. WHO
officials have not been able to link the family members to contact with
infected birds, and have said it's possible limited human-to-human transmission
may have occurred. Similar isolated cases of transmission among humans
is believed to have occurred in 4 or 5 other family clusters, said WHO
spokesman Dick Thompson. But the Indonesia case is the largest ever reported.
However, the WHO has stressed the virus has not mutated in any way and
has shown no signs of spreading outside the family -- all blood relatives
who had very close contact with each other.
-
- A team of international health experts
and villagers is closely monitoring the area where the family lived in
northern Sumatra to ensure no one else experiences flu-like symptoms. About
30 people in the village of Kubu Sembelang have been asked to stay inside
their homes and avoid close contact as a precautionary measure, Thompson
said. Experts also are exploring whether the first woman sickened in the
family may have had contact with sick or dead chickens. She also worked
at a market where chickens were sold and may have used chicken feces as
a garden fertilizer, WHO officials have said.
-
- http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaillgen.asp?fileid=20060526113237&irec=5
-
- ******
-
- Sumatra - Chickens Die In
Large Numbers
- By Tan Ee Lyn
- 5-25-6
-
- (Reuters) -- Chickens are dying in unusually
large numbers in a remote area in Indonesia where avian influenza killed
several members of a family, and experts say the first victim in the cluster
was probably infected by a diseased chicken. For weeks now, health experts
have been trying to hunt down the source that introduced the H5N1 avian
influenza virus to the family in Kubu Sembilang village in north Sumatra,
killing as many as 7 of them.
-
- The case has drawn immense interest because
it is the largest known family cluster involving H5N1 and the World Health
Organisation (WHO) said this week that limited human-to-human transmission
between members of the family might have occurred.
-
- Tests done on samples from pigs, chickens
and ducks in the area have been inconclusive and experts have long maintained
that nothing can be ruled out. This is the first time that they have narrowed
down the likely source to poultry. "What we're finding out the longer
our team stays up in that area is that there are many, many outbreaks in
chickens that always go unreported," stated Steven Bjorge, an epidemiologist
with the WHO. "Just in the past couple of weeks they have found a
couple of outbreaks of chickens dying in various villages in that area
... that raises the very real possibility that people can come into contact
with this virus."
-
- Referring to the first victim in the
cluster, a 37-year-old woman who died on May 4, Bjorge said: "The
first case has to get it from somewhere. It has to be something environmental."
Asked if sick chickens were responsible for this index case, he said: "We
think that it has to be that way."
-
- The WHO has stressed that even if human-to-human
transmission did occur, it was in a very limited way and the infection
had not spread beyond the initial cluster. In addition, scientific evidence
had shown the virus had not mutated into one that can be easily passed
among people -- a necessary precursor for a pandemic to start.
-
- Although Bjorge said it was up to Indonesia's
Agriculture Ministry to find out if the chickens were indeed dying of H5N1,
he said Indonesia was awash with the virus. "Basically, the virus
is totally endemic in Indonesia, thoroughly entrenched in backyard chickens.
That doesn't mean they are dying every day in the same house. It jumps
from place to place," he added.
-
- ProMed Mail
-
- Taken together these reports are consistent
with limited person-to-person transmission of H5N1 avian influenza virus
among blood relatives (as indicated by absence of transmission between
husbands and wives) and some form of contact with diseased poultry or poultry
products. H5N1 avian influenza virus is considered to be endemic throughout
Indonesia on account of poor containment of outbreaks, and perhaps protective
immune responses in flocks (e.g. following attempted vaccination) may mask
the presence of HPAI virus. However, until the source of the infection
in the cluster of human cases in North Sumatra is definitively identified,
all such interpretations remain speculative.
-
- According to the FAO http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/en/health/diseases-cards/special_avian.html
, all laboratory examinations of samples -- mainly from chickens, ducks,
swine and manure -- have failed to detect the virus. Antibodies in a low
proportion of chickens and ducks could be consistent with known earlier
circulation of the avian flu virus in northern Sumatra in late 2005 and
early 2006. On the other hand, they could have resulted from vaccination.
-
- An announcement that some swine from
a nearby village had tested positive for avian flu antibodies raised concern
because this would have represented a new development in the spread of
the disease, opening up the possibility of mammal to mammal transmission.
However, all available evidence suggests that swine play no role in the
transmission of the current strain of H5N1 avian flu virus. Swine sera
are difficult to examine and results need to be confirmed by additional
tests in a reference laboratory that can carry out validated tests for
influenza antibodies in swine. - Mod.CP
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases"
message board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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