Martin W

[Martin W]

Just had email from someone at same meeting mentioned in Reuters report, who said there were reports on testing for H5N1 in wild birds, from Australia and New Zealand north to Mongolia, and west to France. Over 73,000 samples, and only one positive for HPAI – H5N1 from a faecal sample in Mongolia.

Related news item re wild birds wrongly accused, in China Daily:
Migratory birds wrongly accused

Includes:

Quote:

“Migratory birds can be vectors, but evidence indicates this is very rare and they are more often victims of HP H5N1,” Colin Poole, Asia programme director of the international Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), based in the US, told China Daily last week at a Beijing symposium.

…

British scientist Poole, a former chairman of the Oriental Bird Club, a non-governmental organization based in Britain, says data collected by many people shows that the majority of H5N1 infected birds have been resident, not migratory.

In most cases, infected wild birds lived near poultry farms.

And migration routes of wild birds didn’t match patterns of bird flu occurrence.[/url]

[Martin W]

Reuters has item on research, showing: Chicken vaccination can halt bird flu spread -study – protection best from two weeks after vaccine giving

ProMed just cited news item, re poultry vaccine use in China

ProMed, 26 Nov 05

News item included:

Quote:

In a circular issued on Wednesday, the State Council, China’s cabinet, asked local governments to support and supervise designated vaccine producers, and strike hard at those manufacturing fakes.

– suggesting there are significant problems with fakes. There’s list of main manufacturers, including one producing live vaccine – which apparently could lead to problems, as potential for the virus to replicate, become virulent.

ProMed, 8 Mar 05

ProMed also published lengthy review of use of poultry vaccines by David Swayne (poultry disease expert in US):

ProMed, 7 Mar 05 – this seems based on experience in US, rather than in China where vaccines used for thousands of millions of poultry (surely leading to even greater difficulties in ensuring vaccines stored and administered properly – should be given individually), and there are problems with fakes. Even so, notes vaccination is not perfect, and need other measures at same time. Very difficult for China, I think – partly because of scale. Also, shortcuts often taken, to cut costs etc (eg spate of coal mine disasters: to too many officials, safety isn’t a major issue).

[Martin W]

Hi Jo:

Many thanks for posting this; refreshing to see some sense in media (occasionally happens). Guess reporters/editors will be wondering, now bird flu hasn’t spread to Africa, western Europe etc etc with autumn migration.

For anyone not visiting link, item starts:

Quote:

TAINAN, Taiwan (Reuters) – Fears that migratory wild birds will spread a deadly strain of avian flu across the world have little, if any, scientific proof and chances of them infecting humans are even more remote, experts said.

The experts, who attended this week a meeting of the International Waterbird Society in Taiwan, said the biggest threat of the H5N1 strain of highly pathogenic bird flu comes from domestic poultry, not wild birds.

Martin

[Martin W]

And maybe people holding such views can all hold their collective breaths – at least until the panic pandemic has subsided.
Or read, say, thread here re evolutionary biology.

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/25 22:25

[Martin W]

Hi Les:

Thank you again for expert comment.

I’d thought all the H5N1 forms causing trouble were broadly Z, and traced to Guangdong goose 1996 (then HK in 97).
Clearly too simplistic – and maybe I should again read the genotype Z paper and some more, inc one I’ve some memories you co-authored.
…
Google search, and about 88,700 results for “sims h5n1”; include (for others who read this thread):
Origin and evolution of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Asia (summary available to all)
Reassortants of H5N1 Influenza Viruses Recently Isolated from Aquatic Poultry in Hong Kong SAR (summary)
Avian Influenza in Hong Kong 1997–2002 (summary)
An Update on Avian Influenza in Hong Kong 2002 (summary)

Martin

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/24 09:49

[Martin W]

Re virus persisting in Vietnam, even without vaccines:

Would this have been case without China as northern neighbour? China seems key place of origin and reservoir for H5N1 (with vaccination used before thumbs-up from FAO).
– H5N1(Z) in Vietnam surely came from China in first place; was it introduced only once, or continually?

Do domestic ducks really make a suitable “trojan horse” reservoir, especially given research showing H5N1 can evolve to less virulent forms even in domestic ducks? That is, if they were the key reservoir for Vietnam, shouldn’t H5N1 in the country have shifted more strongly away from the genotype Z?

What research has been done or is planned into movements of poultry and other captive birds between China and Vietnam; and indeed between these and other countries?

[Martin W]

Quote:

A critical phase in the evolution of a bird flu pandemic could play out in China in the coming weeks, world bird flu expert Robert Webster said in Dunedin yesterday. … He said a campaign in China to vaccinate its 14 billion poultry flock could precipitate a worst case scenario. The doomsday scenario was that the Chinese would use a poor-quality vaccine that did nothing more than force the virus to mutate into something more lethal. "The international community has no way of knowing whether China will use a good one," Professor Webster said. "There is a big argument that they will simply help the virus to evolve to become a human pathogen."

he also mentions h5n1 in flamingos in Kuwait, without noting that in one bird, and that may have been a captive bird. Nor with any apparent thought about how a flamingo could have been infected by H5N1 (if not in trade). Nor that migration is essentially over for this autumn – this isnn’t a step towards Africa as he suggests; nor that no wild waterbirds in Asia ex-Russia known to have the virus this autumn. Seems to me that Webster has made grand contributions to flu, but he’s currently a bit of a doomsayer, and quick to blame wild birds for spread with nary a shred of evidence. Though I don’t suppose that harms potential for obtaining research grants.

Bird flu expert says virus entering critical phase

[Martin W]

Dear Les:

Thank you again.

I forgot about domestic ducks when making the post; even here, some H5N1 can be lethal, but also know of sometimes infecting without symptoms.

The comment on bad vaccines by Robert Webster was in a presentation/document, titled Research Issues in Animal Surveillance and Pandemic Planning.

I’d thought of temperature for autumn, in China (read of cooler rainy seasons in more tropical places leading to H5N1 outbreaks perhaps increasing); not re the movements for festivals etc.

Martin

[Martin W]

Thanks again, Les

As noted in a post above, Webster says that with substandard vaccines, poultry may not show symptoms, but may harbour H5N1 at transmissible levels, thus promoting spread in live markets – ie not necessarily dying as you suggest.

Report in today’s S China Morning Post on a woman who died of H5N1 in China says bird flu wasn’t noticed in her village; Guan Yi suggests fake vaccines – widely used in China – maybe to blame, with chickens apparently ok but having H5N1 at levels high enough to lead to transmission.

So, I still wonder about substandard vaccines.
Find it hard to see how else this h5n1 strain persists, like peat fire: nothing happens much of the time, then it flares up, maybe in widely separated locales.
If there were only properly vaccinated flocks, and non-vaccinated ones, shouldn’t we see none in vaccinated flocks and no transmission from them; and non-stop succession of outbreaks/epidemic where it persists elsewhere?

Interesting re large farms having less HPAI. Sick chickens noticed and removed before any transmission possible – both from existing, and potentially evolving HPAI?

Martin

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/18 07:15

[Martin W]

Hi Les:

Thank you for another informed post.

Haven’t had time yet to read the FAO document (60 plus pages I noticed!).

I’d thought China was using vaccine against H5N1 before use really sanctioned by FAO – and FAO had been leery re poultry flu vaccines (broadly, emergency use only).
“The current virulent strain of H5N1 emerged among vaccinated poultry in China.” said New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7338

Now, seems emergency is throughout China’s poultry industry.

Quote:

China’s Ministry of Agriculture said in Beijing on Monday that the country now produces more than 100 million doses of bird flu vaccine every day, which can meet the demand in major areas for epidemic prevention and control.

A press release on the ministry’s website says the ministry has enhanced the research, manufacture and quality supervision of bird flu vaccine to guarantee supply.
…
The ministry also enhanced crackdown upon counterfeit vaccines and issued 8.2 million fake-proof labels for this purpose.

http://english.people.com.cn/200511/15/eng20051115_221239.html

Might a virus strain that can thrive in vaccinated poultry also evolve to high virulence, compounding problems with H5N1?

Not that always need a virus strain that thrives with good vaccine, when there can be problems with counterfeits, and other bad vaccines in China. In 12 November South China Morning Post, a news item started:

Quote:

Drugs salesmen who smuggled out an unlicensed
vaccine still being tested and sold it on the market have been blamed
for the massive outbreak of bird flu in Liaoning province.

Says many farmers in Heishan county had used a vaccine produced by
Inner Mongolia Jinguu Group, and this offered little protection against
the deadly disease. The vaccine was intended for testing, but not
supposed to be sold.

In a Nature commentary, Robert Webster and Diane Hulse argue for use of good poultry vaccines coupled with sentinel birds. But using vaccines isn’t straightforward, partly as also get sub-standard vaccines:

Quote:

The few comparative tests that have been done on agricultural vaccines from different suppliers show that some are good and some are bad. Bad vaccines prevent the symptoms of disease but not virus excretion, which can lead to later infection. One of the many arguments against the use of agricultural vaccines is that they promote the selection of mutations in the circulating virus, perpetuating the risk of infection either in the original species or in others.

Controlling avian flu at the source

As well as China, Indonesia has adopted poultry vaccines, yet:
Indonesia says some poultry vaccine below standard

Vietnam in U-turn over bird flu vaccination is a New Scientist news item from May – about Vietnam about to start large-scale testing of poultry flu vaccines.

This article notes that Thailand allows vaccination only for fighting cocks, and free range ducks and chickens. Yet, I’ve seen reports of poultry vaccines smuggled into Thailand:
Thailand finds 2 million doses of bird flu vaccine smuggled in (26 Feb 2004 report)

So, it now seems you’re damned if you vaccinate, damned if you don’t.

With today’s poultry farms evidently serving as “disease factories” (as termed by science writer Wendy Orent) – where Paul Ewald’s theory re evolutionary biology predicts virulent strains of flu will evolve [and can persist while very sick birds can readily transmit disease], it seems the nasty H5N1 variant will remain with us.
Halting vaccination, coupled with fully effective culling (yes, this failed in Vietnam, so hardly hopeful) just might prove a short, extremely sharp shock that could eradicate it – like Hong Kong in 97, but on a massive scale.

Otherwise, need radical transformation of poultry farming – so very sick birds can no longer readily transmit H5N1 and other virulent flus. Something more like wild situation, where dead ducks don’t fly.

A shocking notion, now people hooked on apparently cheap chicken.
Yet Prof Peter Singer notes that we’re seeing something of the true costs of our chicken farms, in
`Factory farming’ is unnatural, unsustainable and dangerous

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/12/11 00:55

[Martin W]

Oh, doesn’t seem to matter how much repeat re trade etc; wild birds have been pronounced guilty in the Salem Bird Trials.

Today’s S China Morning Post has item on conclusion of H5N1 meeting called by World Bank and three UN food and health agencies (but no UN conservation agency).

Says action plan includes “study of migratory bird patterns to predict which countries will have H5N1 cases next”.
Never mind that still lack proof wild birds actually carrying H5N1 around – why no study, say, into why H5N1 so widespread in Asia in 2003/04, there were some outbreaks in Asia this spring and summer, yet no outbreaks in wiid waterbirds reported in Asia (or anywhere outside Russia, Romania and Croatia) this autumn?
Indeed, why do some “experts” (hmm) expect H5N1 to arrive in Africa around now, when migratory birds can’t even spread it around Asia?

Action plan apparently does not include a study into legal and illegal poultry trade, and wild bird trade – even though there is indeed proof this can transport avian flu over long distances. Odd, that.
(Where is IUCN in all this? FAO doing its best to absolve agriculture and blame birds – surely could use some balance?)

[Martin W]

Oh, doesn’t seem to matter how much repeat re trade etc; wild birds have been pronounced guilty in the Salem Bird Trials.

Today’s S China Morning Post has item on conclusion of H5N1 meeting called by World Bank and three UN food and health agencies (but no UN conservation agency).

Says action plan includes “study of migratory bird patterns to predict which countries will have H5N1 cases next”.
Never mind that still lack proof wild birds actually carrying H5N1 around – why no study, say, into why H5N1 so widespread in Asia in 2003/04, there were some outbreaks in Asia this spring and summer, yet no outbreaks in wiid waterbirds reported in Asia (or anywhere outside Russia, Romania and Croatia) this autumn?
Indeed, why do some “experts” (hmm) expect H5N1 to arrive in Africa around now, when migratory birds can’t even spread it around Asia?

Action plan apparently does not include a study into legal and illegal poultry trade, and wild bird trade – even though there is indeed proof this can transport avian flu over long distances. Odd, that.
(Where is IUCN in all this? FAO doing its best to absolve agriculture and blame birds – surely could use some balance?)

[Martin W]

A reporter at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has collected a few of the sillier bird flu stories, including birds flying into glass (yes, happens pretty often), a seagull drunk after eating yeast (but killed by humans fearful of flu), and a Russian member of parliament suggesting H5N1 was created by Americans so they could dominate the world poultry markets.

Avian flu worries create tough times for seagulls, pigeons

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/09 03:18

[Martin W]

A blogger with the moniker Mike the Mad Biologist has written short critique of ideas from Ewald (and covered by Wendy Orent in several articles); seems to hinge largely on flu being transmissible before symptoms.

Evolution, Tradeoffs, Ignoring Biology, and Influenza

Doesn’t seem arguments are real substantial; not helped by what seems to me a rather curious quote re a colleague referring to "those stupid fucking natural history facts." Main one of these facts being again related to flu being transmissible before symptoms (tho as Orent notes, h5n1 is not transmissible – or darn near not transmissible – in humans). I’ve just added comment: Is flu just as contagious during asymptomatic phase. as when symptoms evident (and those with bad cases become immobile)? What of 1918 flu? Just coincidence it evolved – Ewald argues – during Western Front conditions? (And human flu otherwise not major problem; if it could readily evolve to high virulence, shouldn’t it do so more often, and even stay that way?) And why are regular bird flus "mild", yet crowd poultry in "disease factories" and get a flurry of highly pathogenic flus evolving? To me – a birder not biologist – latter seem to be neatly explained by ideas Orent writes of. (Any other theories able to explain these latter facts? Poultry farms would seem "good", accidental experiments that help confirm Ewald’s theory.)

[Martin W]

spoof – yet informed – news report on H5N1 (which could kill between 5, and 150 million):

http://video.lisarein.com/dailyshow/oct2005/10-06-05/10-6-05-avianflu.mov

[Martin W]

just received latest FAO report on avian flu situation; sent comments to conservationists:

So, is FAO a little less sure of its role in the Salem Bird Trials?

“Wild birds seem to be one of the main AI [h5n1] carriers, but more research is urgently needed to fully understand their role in spreading the virus.”
– “seem to be”???
you mean, seem to be because of woefully sloppy thinking, and perhaps an exceptional case or two [Mongolia, maybe Romania]

There is plenty of data, plenty of info – several/all those on this email list well aware of it.
Instead of “more research”, simple application of a little brainpower would help show this is a Poultry Flu: it evolved in poultry, it spreads efficiently among and kills poultry. And even wild birds become victims, but not efficient vectors.
[conveniently, report omits ringing dates for swan in Hungary; powerful evidence it caught H5N1 in Croatia. In 1 Sept report, FAO applying Idiot’s Guide to Logic, by noting wild birds found to have h5n1 all sick or dying, so maybe they wouldn’t be able to carry it over long distance. Err, maybe? Whole report seemed aimed at showing wild birds responsible, and never mind the facts. Domenech’s view, it seems from press reports.]

Why no mention of vaccines, without which we might have eradicated h5n1?

How about some equivalent updates from conservation side (IUCN?), without blatant bias against wild birds (and without being pro agriculture, the very cradle of h5n1 and all high path bird flus causing outbreaks in past four decades).

ne China now blaming magpies as “migratory birds”, for goodness sake.
The Salem Bird Trials continue.

[Martin W]

dog flu evidently from horses:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/27/health/main887339.shtml

more guff from New Scientist, inc mention of five to eight percent death rate (among dogs known to have become infected – with only cough and runny nose in 80$ knon to be infected, maybe there are undiagnosed cases):
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8062&feedId=online-news_rss20

– anyway, no bird flu link

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/05 23:15

[Martin W]

Can it be coincidence that, yeah verily as I post here even now, in this month of November that preceeds the December when you for some reason forecast the Rapture, I read an article in Esquire called Idiot America? All about wacky beliefs that go against science.

You got something useful to say about wild birds and h5n1 – let’s have it.

Otherwise, go peddle your crazy fearmongering and your sales of goods for the unnecessarily frightened elsewhere.

Oh, and December is one month away; no sign at all that flu is set to go pandemic (and even with 1918 virulence – massively unlikely if you read around here – will be a long way from the end of the world).

When the end of this year arrives and shows you’re wrong, wrong, wrong, I hope you’ll take down your site, stop your spammy posting on forums and whatever [this is your second post here, not that you seem to realise], and maybe even become a convert – to science.

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/05 23:03

[Martin W]

Mute Swans that have died of h5n1 in Croatia this autumn were said to have carried the virus from breeding grounds in Russia. No details were given; apparently no thought re whether they could make such a flight with the disease, and whether took a remarkably long time from them catching it to succumbing.

Anyway, just seen this, re a dying swan that had been ringed (banded) when it stopped over in Hungary:

Quote:

The ring number is 10JJ.

The bird was caught and marked on 9 September at Balatonfüred.

It was still observed on 22 September at the same place.

It was observed in Croatia on 19 October at the same place where it has been found dead.

… it is very likely that the bird got the AI in Croatia.

Later info: turns out the swans had h5n1 before arriving on the fishponds in Croatia.
But, from western Europe (not Siberia), so still a mystery where they contracted the virus. Other waterbirds on the ponds not infected.

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/12/09 08:50

[Martin W]

Scientific American blogger (editor of the magazine) made post with sume criticisms of evolutionary biology and flu at:

Don’t Fear The (Bird) Reaper

led to detailed responses: Bird Reaper, Pt II: Wendy Orent replies

Bird Reaper, Pt III: Paul Ewald replies

Above replies give useful info re evolutionary biology. I just fired off something simpler:

C’mon, the post with the muddled stuff about H5N1 and evolutionary biology’s a red herring. The real issue’s surely the remarkable Lindsay Beyerstein – remarkable not so much for her blog posts but because (from the photo), Dang, She’s Hot!

Otherwise, what with extensively citing an anonymous muddleheaded blogger who bandies big words about in sentences without clear conclusions (or, to demonstrate his belief in Unintelligent Design?) would suggest you were making a contribution to what the November Esquire calls Idiot America. Toodlepip (from citizen but not currently resident of UK, which has faults but at least doesn’t need Oprah to explain global warming)

[Martin W]

email I’ve just circulated, re report I’ve belatedly seen from FAO:

Only just seen FAO special issue on wild birds and h5n1.
http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/subjects/documents/ai/AVIbull033.pdf

Terrible piece of work; very muddled; yet manages to implicate wild birds in spreading h5n1 (including, in simple diagram, to poultry – any proof this has occurred?)
Written by the same sort of committee that designed the camel? – ie some bunch of people contributing a bit here, a little there.

Says certain species of ducks can be infected by AI without clinical signs (surely true of all birds, with regular wild bird flus). Then says some ducks killed by h5n1.
Says migration routes don’t tally with observed spread of h5n1; but also manages to suggest wild birds are responsible anyway. Notes re spread with northward component in July, but nothing re wild birds not migrating at this time – and certainly no overall movement, even of juvenile ducks, in this direction.
Says wild birds made sick/killed by h5n1. And yet, when many birds killed at Qinghai, suggests they can spread h5n1 (so for muddle heads at OIE, dead ducks do fly?) [also says no poultry farms near Qinghai; but not explaining why 20,000 poultry culled in vicinity]

jusdging by this in conclusion, committee clearly included at least one idiot, and idiocy reigned supreme:

Quote:

“Wild birds found to have been infected with HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza – ie H5N1] were either sick or dead. This could possibly affect the ability of these birds to carry HPAI for long distances.”

Post edited by: martin, at: 2005/11/04 02:03

[Martin W]

Hi Lenny:

Thanks for the posts; I’ve added the photo to one.

In Hong Kong, one or two dead Little Egrets tested positive. Most of our Little Egrets are resident, and this/these birds at pond in an urban park, with ornamental ducks etc that were killed by H5N1 (at much the same time as H5N1 in local poultry farms)

Yes, smuggled birds could indeed be a problem.
Hope Candaba remains h5n1 free!

Martin

[Martin W]

Hi:

There’s some info on this site, inc article via link at left (bird flu intro, on Asia).

But, you might be better wanting more detail: flyways for which region, say?

Then, maybe google search; perhaps for something like “asia flyways birds”.

Good luck; and if you find a great site, maybe let us know.
While if you find nothing useful, post another request for info.

Martin

[Martin W]

Quote:

Bird flu arrived in Russia in very curious way. We were told that the virus was introduced by ducks that migrated to the Altai region. When you look at the map, you discover that these ducks not only crossed the Himalayas on their way from India to the Altai, they made the trip in mid-summer when migratory birds tend not to fly very far. Not to mention that the incubation period of bird flu is such that the ducks would have keeled over in the Himalayas. When you plot the reported outbreaks of bird flu on the map, however, you can’t help noticing that the route chosen by those wild ducks — Altai, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Kurgan, Chelyabinsk, Tula — coincides quite closely with major railroad lines.

[Martin W]

Quote:

MOSCOW, October 27 (RIA Novosti, Maria Gusarova) – The Moscow Zoo’s Chief Veterinarian said Thursday that the cause of the bird flu outbreak is the unmonitored transit of domestic birds, not wild bird migration.

“No one has proved anywhere that the carriers of avian flu are wild birds…However, the black market for trading animals provides all the conditions for the unmonitored transit of un-examined birds,” Valentin Kozlitin said.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20051027/41911603.html

[Martin W]

after sending the above image to a few people, I promptly received this – which actually appeared – illustrating serious bird flu item – in India Daily (someone there creative w Photoshop?)

[Martin W]

As yet, h5n1 known in only relatively few wild birds (evidently thousands at one site, perhaps hundreds in total elsewhere; all in Eurasia – this despite millions around)
Ten or so songbirds tested positive in Thailand recently; all in vicinity of farms that prone to h5n1 before (so my guess: they fed at/around these farms)

Studies of regular, wild bird flus (appear harmless to birds; no problem to people) have found them commonest in waterfowl. Seems sensible to me: transmission via faeces, which not easy for a lot of birds.

So, no real reason for concern re those birds at your feeders, unless is huge surge of h5n1 into regular birds (and even then, this is a bird disease, not readily to humans).
[can say chance not exactly zero; but tiny, maybe like worrying a meteor might strike you whilst putting out bird food! Maybe remember, too, I’m writing in Hong Kong, where oversease news reports might suggest is already sizzling hot with h5n1 in wild birds as part of Asia – this autumn, not one case (so far!)]
So far, the media hoopla is enormous, actual h5n1 impact outside poultry industry small. Fear has spread fast, though.

[Martin W]

from Taichi Kato, an ornithologist in Japan:

This news in Science magazine adequately summarizes the most up-to-date
facts and discussions in the role of migratory birds potentially spreading
the current H5N1 HPAI. If you can access to the online journal, make a
visit at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5747/426 .

“Are Wild Birds to Blame?”
Dennis Normile
Science 21 October 2005: 426-428.

[Some excerpts and comments]

As H5N1 reaches Europe, scientists debate the role of wild birds but agree
on the need for greater surveillance

But avian experts have been almost universally skeptical that wild birds are
spreading the virus. One reason is that sampling of tens of thousands of birds
has failed to turn up a single healthy wild bird carrying the pathogenic
strain of H5N1,

-> No direct evidence of carrying H5N1.

Evidence so far suggests that H5N1 kills wild ducks and geese nearly as
efficiently as it does chickens. “Dead ducks don’t fly” has been the refrain,
as avian experts point out that sick and dying birds simply can’t spread
viruses very far. Instead, epidemiologists investigating the virus’s jump,
even to geographically far-flung regions, keep turning up evidence suggesting
that the poultry trade and other human activities are responsible.

-> This statement is slightly a bit different from the recent WHO/OIE
fact summaries. They consider that H5N1 is less pathogenic to
migratory ducks and geese. I suspect that this WHO/OIE statement
is a precautionary one (to prepare the worst case) rather than
evidence-based analysis.

Now, however, evidence implicating wild birds is starting to convince even
some of the doubters. “Until about 2 months ago, I was pretty skeptical on
whether wild birds were playing a role,” says David Suarez, a virologist with
the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Southeast Poultry Research
Laboratory

What changed his mind, he says, was the death of 100 or so ducks, gulls,
geese, and swans from H5N1 at a remote lake in Mongolia that he believes
can’t be explained by human activities. And, he and others add, in an
unexpected twist, it’s beginning to look as though the culprits might not
be the long-suspected migratory waterfowl but another yet-unidentified wild
species.

-> This indicates that (even in the presence of European findings),
at least some epidemiologists consider the Mongolian cases most compelling.
[This is the same reason why I have been following the Mongolian case
in depth]. There must have been a far greater chance of human and poultry
contacts in crowded Europe than in Mongolia. There have even been a report
of poultry meat seized from Turkey even after the ban of poultry trade
from Turkey. In relation to the second suspected occurrence in Turkey,
the local media reported the presence of live chicken movements from the
region of the initial outbreak, sufficient to suspect the presence of
routine trade activities.

Nailing down the answer became even more urgent last week with the
confirmation that H5N1 has now entered Europe.

Everyone recognizes that if wild birds are involved, new strategies will be
needed to halt the virus’s spread to domestic flocks–and from them to people.
A growing number of scientists and organizations are calling for dramatically
increased global surveillance to profile all viruses circulating in wild
birds.

-> This is the true reason why European cases are so weighed; these
cases are not “better proofs” of transmission by migratory birds, but
are an alarm to the global community to face the problem as a serious
threat: all nations need to make a surveilance network of wild birds
and poultry, and there is an urgent need of international cooperation
for funding. The FAO and OIE statement, however, has been regarded as
fear by the public against wild birds…

So far, however, there is no known natural reservoir for highly pathogenic
avian influenza viruses. They emerge only after low-pathogenicity viruses
jump from water birds into chickens and turkeys.

-> We always need to stress that LPAI (natural strain) and HPAI have
different characteristics in the wildlife.

No one has yet uncovered the lineage of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain now
endemic in Asia. Presumably, it evolved from a low-pathogenicity H5N1 variant
circulating in waterfowl in southern China before the first known outbreak of
the disease in chickens in Hong Kong in 1997.

-> This information is precious for those who have been searching for
an ancestral strain of the current H5N1 HPAI: the answer is “not discovered
yet”.

When public health experts pointed to migratory birds as a likely source,
ornithologists and animal epidemiologists showed that the outbreaks did not
neatly fit any known migratory patterns. If migratory birds were carriers,
they argued, the virus should have turned up in the Philippines and Taiwan
by now, but it hasn’t.

-> This also explains why health officials (including WHO’s Lee, the
biotechnology company such as Recombinomics) usually stress on wild birds.
The more the possibilty of a pandemic is spoken, the more health officials
(rather than wildlife researchers) are asked to make a public statement,
likely addressing on migratory birds.

-> The recent discovery of H5N1 in smuggled birds in Taiwan is a notifiable
feat, since if a secondary outbreak may have arisen, that would have easily
been identified as the most compelling evidence of migratory birds
transmitting the virus (since migration is already in place).

What’s more, since the late 1990s, USDA has sampled more than 10,000 waterfowl
crossing the Bering Sea from Asia to Alaska, while University of Hong Kong
researchers have tested several thousand entering Hong Kong; neither group
has found a single healthy bird carrying the H5N1 virus.

-> Accumulating negative data.

Instead, human movements of infected poultry have spread the virus over
seemingly improbable distances. For instance, an outbreak of H5N1 among
poultry in Lhasa, Tibet, in January 2004 was traced to a shipment of chickens
from Lanzhou in China’s Gansu Province, about 1500 kilometers away. An even
more bizarre case surfaced in October 2004, when an air traveler was caught
at Brussels Airport with two crested hawk eagles, infected with H5N1, in his
carry-on bag. The smuggler had bought them at a Bangkok bird market on behalf
of a Belgian falconer.

-> Perhaps this would clarify the Lhasa case (which people would have
concerned about). Lanzhou is located not very far away from Qinghai lake
(any relation between them?).

More explanation about Qinghai case:

The die-off immediately raised alarms that surviving birds might carry the
virus to India and beyond. But, apparently because of infighting between
Chinese ministries and institutions, the government barred Chinese and outside
scientists from sampling or tracking the travel of surviving birds.
“It was a missed opportunity,”

Researchers are still wondering how the virus got to this remote corner of
China. Just after the Lake Qinghai outbreak, the virus turned up on a poultry
farm in the same province. This “makes it difficult to tell whether poultry
or wild birds brought the virus to the area,” says Suarez.

at Erkhel Lake. The group collected 774 samples from both dead and living
birds. USDA confirmed highly pathogenic H5N1 in dead birds–but found no
evidence of the virus in any samples from the live ducks, gulls, geese,
or swans.

is that wild birds carried the virus to Erkhel Lake and infected the birds
that eventually died. “We don’t know which species were responsible for
spreading the virus,”

Figuring out which species might be involved will be tough, others note,
as next to nothing is known about avian influenza except in waterfowl.

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Since last March, he has collected more
than 6000 viral and serological samples from a variety of wild animals
throughout China, including 2000 samples from migratory and resident birds,
and is searching for H5N1.

George Gao, a virologist at CAS’s Institute of Microbiology in Beijing, has
collected several dozen serum samples from birds that survived the H5N1
outbreak at Qinghai Lake. If any test positive for antibodies to the H5N1
virus, says Gao, who is preparing to publish a paper, it would suggest that
some mildly infected water birds might be carrying the virus long distances.

-> This indicates (at least up to now) that no “virus positive” healthy
migratory bird was discovered after the outbreak at Qinghai Lake, pending
the publication of the mentioned work.

[Martin W]

Hi again:

My belief is that for various officials, wild birds make easy scapegoats (better than saying may be problems with poultry industry – both economically and strategically important).
And connection maybe seems easy – this is “bird flu”, and birds move around. Suits the media, when want headlines while only look superficially. Wild birds migrating from China and Russian with deadly disease – how scary is that?!

Sometimes, seems officials may take little notice of science. Eg Lee of WHO, saying re wild birds’ importance; while another (lower in chain in WHO, but more in contact with science?) – a WHO flu expert as I recall – said he felt they’re not too important.

In FAO, Domenech at top blames’ wild birds; yet a vet with extensive experience of H5N1 in the field in Asia, including working for FAO, believes wild birds aren’t major vectors (Les Sims, posted to one of threads here). Again, the guy who knows details, vs someone with more cursory overview – it seems to me. [Domenech quoted in a thread here; admits he has no smoking gun, no species he can point to that’s moving flu.]

“Dead birds don’t migrate” used by guy with US Geol Service, which actually doing bird flu in wild birds work. Dunno if came from my Dead Ducks Don’t Fly article, via links on left here (Bird Flu n Wild Birds).
Pultry disease expert in US, Swayne [sp?], also believed wild birds not vectors – less sure now after Romania.
[I’d ask: if wild birds spreading, why are no wild bird outbreaks currently known in Asia? Plenty of migrants moving and moved here this autumn. May yet see outbreaks, but as yet, no. I was at wetland w migrants in HK today; all looking as normal, tho given leaflet with guidelines re flu, inc washing hands before using telescope]

You mention evolution; see re evolutionary biology. In essence, with bird flu, Dead Ducks’ Don’t Fly; explains why natural wild bird flus are “mild”, and to me strongly suggests/shows wild birds can’t be major vectors for highly pathogenic flus – bearing out all results till this year, anyway. [Similarly, why human flus tend to be none too dangerous]
I haven’t seen decent counter-arguments.

More info still needed; more will come as autumn comes to close over next v few weeks.

Martin

[Martin W]

Thanks, Tony

Next time you log on, maybe read as well.

Martin

[Author]

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