- The Netherlands. There have been two unexplained incidents
this month in which people fell ill after contact with caged birds.
- In the first incident, twenty-four people started vomiting
violently and developed sudden skin rashes shortly after visiting a pet
shop in Hoogeveen in The Netherlands - as did 80 people in the surrounding
suburb. Shortly before, a young pet cayman had been found dead in its
terrarium in the pet shop.
-
- It is not a widely known fact but crocodilian animals,
among the oldest creatures on the planet, also have the world's best immune
systems. They hardly ever die of biological diseases even though they
often live in muddy water with high levels of bacteria, fungii and faecal
waste.
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- The alerted Dutch health department immediately quarantined
the Hoogeveen pet shop and the entire surrounding neighbourhood.
- A day later, the owner also found all the shop's caged
birds dead inside.
-
- The health department is still examining all these dead
animals but announced on November 16 that they still did not know why
these people had fallen ill nor what the cayman had died of. All the
people involved now seem fully recovered but are being monitored by the
Community Health Service (GGD) which is urging people who also became
ill that day near the pet shop to get in touch with them.
-
- The authorities did believe that there must have been
some kind of "biological infection" but they don't know the
exact origin as yet. They also said that the pet-shop birds who died a
day later, could have succumbed to 'stress' from all the sudden commotion.
- The health department has cleared away all the carcasses
and also removed the cayman-terratium in the pet shop.
- The quarantine on the suburb was lifted.
-
- In the second incident reported this month, dozens of
members of a Dutch bird-fancier-society had developed flu-like symptoms
-- two with double-pneumonia -- after visiting a bird show in Deurne on
November 3 and 4.
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- According to the Dutch Community Health Service, (GGD)
one of the bird-fanciers who had visited the bird show is in critical
condition.
- They are investigating whether the visitors and members
of the "Friends of the Birds" society could have been infected
with parrot- disease.
-
- All the birds at the exhibition have been placed in quarantine
and are being examined.
- "Friends of the Birds Society" secretary Geert
Willems said some 150 to 200 people visited the bird show on November
3 and 4.
- Within a week, the society members started reporting
that a very large number of their members who had visited the show started
showing serious flu-like symptoms.
-
- Five society members are now recuperating in the Nijmegen
hospital, and one in Eindhoven hospital.
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- Parrot-disease is spread through the faeces and gander
produced by the birds, said the GGD.
- Especially elderly people are vulnerable to this infection.
-
- The organiser of the bird-show has warned people who
visited it and show flu-like symptoms, to report to their doctors at once.
- links to both stories - in Dutch:
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- http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/2538486/ Tientallen_zieken_na_vogelshow_Weurt.html?cid=rss
- http://www.destentor.nl/binnenlandstn/2115642/Nog-tachtig-mensen-
met-gezondheidsklachten.ece?
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