Penumbra Pandemia

"Foot and mouth is priority despite bluetongue
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
www.telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 7:20pm BST 23/09/2007
Just when livestock farmers thought it couldn't get much worse, with all animal movements stopped in the peak autumn sales season, rocketing feed prices and little silage for the winter, it did. The arrival of bluetongue has heralded a new, potentially devastating crisis for farmers.
Veterinary attention will now be distracted on this new threat to British livestock, just when it should be focused on securing the quickest possible end to the foot and mouth outbreak - which should still remain the top priority.
'A bout of avian flu [H5N1] and our happiness would be complete,' one grim farmer joked.
We knew it was coming. The species of midge that carries the virus is a sedentary beast. It buzzes around a half mile radius, biting things. But every now and then a jet of wind comes along and, whoosh, sucks up the midge, and it ends up a hundred miles away.
And it is less than a hundred miles from Britain to the fast-multiplying red dots on the map which denote the farms in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany that have already fallen victim to the bluetongue virus since autumn last year.
So when Debby Reynolds, the chief vet, warned farmers last month to be vigilant because Britain faced an increased risk of an outbreak of the deadly disease, she was really telling us that the first case could only be a matter of time. So it has proved.
Defra however are still reluctant to class this as an outbreak.
I suppose, theoretically, the infected midge could die exhausted from its labours before biting a second animal or passing the virus to another midge. But that seems like clutching at straws.
The likelihood is that bluetongue is here in the midge population - at least until winter, which farmers will be praying is severe as last year's mild winter is thought to be what kept the disease going in Belgium and Holland during the cold months.
Defra are now likely to be importing 'sentinel' cattle to the Ipswich farm to see if there are any more infected midges about.

Bluetongue is harder to tackle than foot and mouth and raises entirely different issues.
The bad news is that people on the Continent fear it may already be endemic there. The good news is that a vaccine, although currently not available in Britain, has worked elsewhere. The Merial pharmaceutical company at the Government-licensed Pirbright laboratory complex in Surrey is already making an export only vaccine - presumably for a different strain of the disease.
There is the question which doesn't arise with foot and mouth of when and if to slaughter. Some animals do recover, though others suffer muscle wastage, quite randomly it seems. Defra pre-purchased the Highland cow near Ipswich and slaughtered it for tests and to prevent it infecting the midge population.
Will that continue or will we see if animals recover? Unlike with foot and mouth, there is no automatic compensation.
Farmers and vets will want to play this one 24 hours at a time while hoping that the prevailing winds this autumn are all in the other direction. Unfortunately for them, the weather for the next week or so looks as if it favours the midges.
---
Another deadly disease, African horse sickness, described by the Institute of Animal Health, also based at Pirbright, as 'probably the worst horse disease on the planet,' has already had a toehold in Spain. It is carried by the same midge as bluetongue.
Another insect-borne African disease, this time of humans, Chikungunya, affected more than 200 people in Italy this year for the first time.
---"
*****
How come Briton cows get all those diseases? Mad cows disease, foot and mouth, H5N1, bluetongue, ... What's wrong with them?!

Pig Disease in China Worries the World
Lack of Data Impedes Research
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Researcher Crissie Ding contributed
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 16, 2007; Page A01
Moving rapidly from one farm to the next, the virus has been devastating pig communities throughout China for more than a year, wiping out entire herds, driving pork prices up nearly 87 percent in a year and helping push the country's inflation rate to its highest levels since 1996.

eptical, citing the government's handling of the avian flu outbreak in 2004 and SARS in 2002 and 2003. While China's central government has made numerous improvements since then in how it deals with infectious disease control and informs the public, it has once again been slow to share scientific data and tissue samples with othercountries.
As a result, there is worry that while China is lagging, the virus is quickly turning into a global problem. China does not export pork to the United States, but the virus has already been found in pigs in China's southern neighbors, Vietnam and Burma.
---
For China, one of the largest exporters of pork and pork products in the world and the target of recent criticism for the safety of its food and other exports, 'there are economic-commercial incentives to cover up,' said Yanzhong Huang, editor of the Journal of Global Health Governance and an assistant professor at Seton Hall University.
---
Among the possible conditions for the sample sharing that are being discussed: that patents and royalties from the development of vaccines and treatments remain the property of China. 'There has been a feeling that in the past, some Chinese scientists have not been given recognition for their contributions,' Lubroth said.
---
Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture declined to answer questions by phone about the pig deaths and did not respond to questions faxed to them.
The tissue samples that China has obtained are the key to any scientific research on what's killing the pigs in China. Without them, it's impossible to verify the type of illness, much less develop a cure for it.
---
It is against this backdrop that worries are mounting that what seemed to be an ordinary outbreak of swine disease here in Guangdong province on the country's southern coast -- the same place where some of the earliest cases of avian flu were reported -- is mutating and spreading.
At least 26 of China's 33 provinces and regions have announced they found diseased pigs within their borders. The FAO said in interviews last week that it has confirmed that the disease is moving to the west, where some breeders from the southern areas had taken their pigs to keep them safe in the early months of the disease. The FAO said one of the latest outbreaks occurred in July near Chongqing, an industrial city in southwestern China where many U.S. companies operate.
--
There are also concerns that the disease that is killing so many pigs may not even be blue ear disease after all or that a type of blue ear virus -- known as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome -- has mutated into a much more lethal form.
In the PLoS ONE paper, Chinese scientists describe a vicious pathogen that can decimate an entire pig population in three to five days. They say autopsies showed severe damage to multiple organs, including lungs, spleen and kidneys.
'The last two years have seen a radical evolvement of the virus. It has become highly killing, and it is combining with many other diseases,' said Zhu Guoqiang, a professor of veterinary medicine at Yangzhou University.
'Given the mortality rates that we are seeing, it is something more than the virus -- either a mutation from an environmental situation, bacterial infections or even a second virus. . . . We have not gotten to the bottom of it,' said the FAO's Lubroth.
Though there's no evidence that the virus poses a threat to humans, there are signs that diseased pigs already have entered the food supply either directly because farmers may be trying to pass off diseased pigs as healthy ones, or indirectly because they have been thrown into water used for fishing or for drinking.
---
At the end of August, China launched an aggressive public education campaign about the pig disease, printing 600,000 handbooks about prevention and control of blue ear disease and dispatching 251 experts to disease-stricken areas. On Aug. 30, it passed laws that would provide for harsher punishments for animal owners who do not comply with vaccination policies and who did not report possible outbreaks.

In the countryside around Foshan, the brick pig stalls that line the roads are empty, and so now are the houses. Many of the farmers who used to raise pigs have left to try to find jobs in factories.

Those who remain rarely leave their homes for fear of carrying the disease and inadvertently transmitting it to their pigs. Many said they did not know the name of the disease that has affected the pigs and that much of what they had heard may be superstition.
Since May, Xie Hanquan, 53, has barricaded himself and his family inside his pig farm. His 200 pigs are healthy, but he's worried that his neighbors may bring the disease to his farm. When he has to go out to get food and supplies, he makes sure to change his clothes and douse his shoes and body with disinfectant alcohol before opening the metal fence to his home. 'Everyone is afraid now,' Xie said.
Two pigs belonging to Lo, the farmer from Shandi, gave birth to stillborn babies in June. Shortly afterward, the two pigs died. Lo said he threw the bodies in a nearby river. He said it was common practice.
On a recent weekday afternoon, a single bloated, purple pig carcass was floating near the southern bank."

The mysterious disease in Bejaia was a viral tonsillitis
Reda Bouzouina
www.echoroukonline.com
Wednesday, September 12 @ 14:09:15 CDT
"Members of the Police Unit of Oued Ghir municipality in Bejaia, 200 km east of Algiers were all hospitalized due to viral tonsillitis, indicated Wednesday the Algerian Health Ministry.
The check-up made on samples taken on the patients revealed the viral aspect of the disease with erythematous-pultaceous membranes.
'Check-ups have been made at Institut Pasteur and an epidemiology investigation has been launched in this regard,' according to the Ministry of Health who added 'a vaccination campaign against the disease has been also launched to prevent people from any surge of the disease.' 'The vaccination campaign will be spread to workers of the Bejaia port and airport,' said the same source.
*****
Or is it only the kissing disease aka mononucleosis?

Germans investigate bird flu source
14/09/2007 00:00:00
FWi
"German officials battling the current H5N1 avian flu outbreak have admitted that infected ducks may have entered the food chain.
Tests on 18 deep frozen ducks at a processing plant at the centre of the current outbreak were positive for the virus, according to a state official. These 18 ducks had been set aside as a routine batch sample at the plant.
Roland Eichhorn of the Bavarian Consumer Affairs Ministry could not rule out the possibility that consumers had unwittingly eaten infected meat.
---
The discovery came as officials completed the slaughter of 205,000 ducks on two further units 87 miles (140km) north of Munich after birds were found to have antibodies indicating exposure to the virus.
---
Both farms had links with the original farm in the current outbreak, which came to light on 25 August when an abnormally high mortality rate was detected in a flock of nearly 170,000 ducks. More than 400 birds died in a short period.
Investigations into the source of the virus are ongoing but straw contaminated with the H5N1 virus was the likely source of an outbreak. Ottmar Fick, the chief veterinarian in the Erlangen district of northern Bavaria said: 'It remained unclear how the straw, which was stored on the farm, became infected, although wild birds were a possible source.'
Adding weight to that theory are the large numbers of wild birds seen in central and southern Germany in recent months, including wild ducks near Munich."
*****
Mahtaako Stockmannilla taas olla keski-eurooppalaisia ankanlihatuotteita alennusmyynnissä kuten oli taannoin Ranskan H5N1-lintukuolemien yhteydessä?

Thailand, Laos discuss bird flu
TNA
KHON KAEN
Sept 13, Last Update: 17:55:25 (GMT+7:00)
Laotian officials said here on Thursday that the only laboratory for bird flu in the capital of Vientiane was insufficient to cope with the worsening situation and that more laboratories were needed.
In a conference between Thai and Laos medical officials to discuss the bird flu situation in the region, both parties discussed on cooperation to establish a bird flu surveillance network.
The Laos eight-member delegation was headed by Dr. Kampae Pongsawan, chief of Laos Rapid Response H5N1 Bird Flu Unit.
Kampae said Laos had been on vigilant for bird flu spread after two persons were dead from infecting H5N1 virus which could transmit from human to human.
'The Laos government, supported by World Health Organization, World Fund and Japanese government, has encouraged health education for Laos people to raise the awareness and understanding of bird flu,' said Kampae. 'Laos also receives technical assistance from Thailand as there is not much language barrier between the two countries.'"

"Bird-flu found in German frozen ducks - were any eaten?
Author: DPA
Berlin
Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:28:06 GMT
Ducks infected with the H5N1 bird-flu virus might have been eaten by unsuspecting Germans, but would not have infected anyone once the meat was roasted, a state health official said Monday. He spoke after more than a third of a million ducks had been slaughtered at poultry farms and incinerated to curb an outbreak of the disease 140 kilometres north of Munich, in Germany's Bavaria state.
H5N1 avian influenza had been found in 18 deep-frozen ducks set aside as batch samples at a poultry-company slaughterhouse.
In Germany's biggest-ever animal-health cull, a total of 365,000 ducks were being destroyed in the small towns of Wachenroth and Schwandorf. The killing was set to be completed by Monday night.
Asked if infected meat from the Wachenroth butchery could have reached shops, Roland Eichhorn of the Bavarian consumer affairs ministry said, 'We can't completely exclude that.'
But he said that commerce officials moved after the first sign of the outbreak and impounded all meat produced at the farms on or after July 30. Federal animal-health scientists believed the outbreak began August 1.
'This type of duck is casseroled, and then the meat poses no danger to the consumer,' Eichhorn said. ---"
*****
So the slaughterhouse didn't provide any poultry meat other than to be casseroled?

Bird flu virus at Krasnodar poultry farm identified as H5N1
Itar-Tass
04.09.2007, 22.58
KRASNODAR, September 4
The Federal Veterinarian and Phytosanitary Control Service has identified the bird flu virus from the Lebyazhye-Chepiginskoye poultry farm in the Krasnodar territory as H5N1, a source at the service’s territorial department told Itar-Tass on Tuesday with the reference to laboratory tests.
Krasnodar Governor Alexander Tkachyov confirmed the test results at a Tuesday meeting of the Security Council.
'The bird flu outbreak is localized, and there are no new cases. The situation is under control, the place is under quarantine and disinfected,' the source said.
There will be no bird flu epidemics at Krasnodar poultry farms, said department chief Alexander Fontanetsky."


Krasnodar region is situated on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. It's also along the main railway from Moscow to Black Sea and from there to Baku, Azerbaidjan and the Caspian Sea

"Two infants rushed to hospital for likely bird flu
ANTARA News
09/01/07 14:39
Denpasar
Two infants, who have been suspected of being infected with bird flu or Avian Influenza (AI) virus, were rushed to Sanglah Hospital, Denpasar on Friday night, bringing the number of suspected bird flu patients, who have been treated at the hospital in Bali to 13 so far.
The two were identified as Ahmad Zakaria (4), a resident of western Denpasar area, and Komang Budi Prayoga (3) of Sideman, Karangasem district, Bali Province, a staff member of Sanglah Hospital said here on on Saturday.
Currently, there are five suspected bird flu patients being treated in the hospital, a doctor said.
'However, we could not confirm whether it`s bird flu or not, because their blood samples are still being checked at the laboratory,' a doctor added.
Of the total 13 people having been treated in Bali so far, six were cured and had left the hospital. The other five are still being treated, and two residents died recently.
The avian flu virus broke out in Indonesian for the first time in 2005. The number of infected humans in Indonesia has reached 105 of whom 84 have died, the Indonesian Health Ministry said here recently.
The latest fatality was a 28-year-old woman, identified by her initials AS, who lived in Banjar Natu Gaing village, Tabanan district, Bali. She had tested positive for the H5Ni virus which causes bird flu, according to a press statement issued by the Health Ministry`s public communication center.
AS died at the Sanglah General Hospital in Denpasar on August 21 bringing the number of human bird flu cases in Indonesia to 105. As 84 of them had died, the case fatality rate was 80 percent, the statement said."

"Demand for broilers in Bali plunges due AI outbreak
ANTARA News
Denpasar, Bali
08/27/07 18:50
Demand for broilers in Bali has plunged by up to 50 percent to around 50,000 from 300,000 a day since bird flu (Avian Influenza/AI) outbreaks occurred in the resort island a few days ago, an industry spokesman said.
'In Denpasar, 250,000 broilers were put for sale this week but no chicken meat distributor bought them,' chairman of the Bali Animal Breeders` Association Ketut Yahya Kurniadi said on Monday.
The same situation prevailed in Jembrana district where breeders became worried as the local authorities had temporarily banned them from selling broilers to the rest of Bali, he said.
'The price of broiler has plunged to Rp7,000 a kg in Jembrana district while in Denpasar it ranges between Rp8,500 and Rp9,000 a kg,' he said.
He expressed hope that the government would soon take steps to contain the bird flu outbreaks.
'It is expected the government will soon resolve the bird flu-related problems so breeders will not suffer further losses in their broiler sales,' he said.
Data from the Sanglah general hospital here show three people have died of bird flu in Bali.
To contain bird flu outbreaks, authorities in Denpasar have culled a number of poultry and conducted disinfectant sprayings.
Denpasar Animal Husbandry Office head Dewa Made Ngurah, said last week the local administration had ordered local village heads to immediately report to the concerned authorities any bird flu case so that the authorities could take quick responsive action.
In addition, Bali Island`s Gilimanuk port authorities have also forbidden the unloading of chickens and ducks from boats from Java since a few weeks ago following the discovery of a bird flu case in Jembrana recently.
---
Jembrana authorities have set up rapid response teams supervising the implementation of the poultry transportation restriction."

"Aburizal: in indonesia bird flu is not transmitted from one human being to another
Denpasar (ANTARA News)
09/02/07 23:57
People`s Welfare Coordinating Minister Aburizal Bakrie said in Indonesia there have been no cases in which birdflu is transmitted from one human being to another.
What has taken place is the transmission of birdflu from fowls to human beings,' the minister said in Jembaran, Bali, on Sunday.
In a meeting with the Jembaran district authorities, the minister reminded them of the importance to prevent the spread birdflu from fowls to human beings.
The efforts of the Jembaran district administration in coping with the spread of birdflu was quite good effective, he said.
---
Bali in anticipation of the spread of birdflu virus had made efforts including fogging, vaccination of healthy fowls and culling of infected fowls.
In addition, the local government also closed fowl trade with provinces outside Bali either with Java or West Nusa Tenggara through tight inspection of vehicles entering Bali."

Two more Children Infected with Bird-Flu in Bali
birdflunewsflash.wordpress.com
1, September 2007
"ANTARA is reporting that another two infants from Bali, suspected of being infected with bird flu, were rushed to Sanglah Hospital, Denpasar on Friday night, bringing the number of suspected bird flu patients, who have been treated at the hospital in Bali to 13 so far.
The two were identified as Ahmad Zakaria (4), a resident of western Denpasar area, and Komang Budi Prayoga (3) of Sideman, Karangasem district, Bali Province, a staff member of Sanglah Hospital said here on on Saturday.
Currently, there are five suspected bird flu patients being treated in the hospital, a doctor said.
'However, we could not confirm whether it`s bird flu or not, because their blood samples are still being checked at the laboratory,' a doctor added.
Of the total 13 people having been treated in Bali so far, six were cured and had left the hospital. The other five are still being treated, and two residents died recently. ---"
*****
The H5N1 quick tests seem to have been positive, because the "blood samples are still being checked at the laboratory".