Reply To: FAO/OIE wild birds and H5N1 conference papers

[Martin W]

And, another comment, critical of the Anatidae carrying H5N1 paper:

Quote:

The authors cite the date of the first confirmed outbreak in Ukraine
as DECEMBER 2005. There was an OIE report filed by Ukraine on 5 Dec
2005, but this report says first outbreak began on 25 Nov.

Also, officials later admitted that they were aware of outbreaks in
October and farmers quoted by news media said the first outbreaks
actually began in September.

see
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/12/02c85854-bdf3-4889-a065-
eba2b9099ff7.html

Any way you look at it, the date used for Ukraine is wrong. What
about the others ??

Also remember that death rate in poultry flocks only reaches real
catastrophic levels only 3 weeks or more after the index
case/introduction occurs — so that the “observed date” of first
reported major outbreak occurs at least one month after the actual
initial introduction.

When these aspects are factored into the equation also,
the “evident” temporal correlations cited in this study may become
pretty tenuous indeed …

Post edited by: martin, at: 2006/11/05 10:41