H5N1, Bird Flu Updates

indigo girl · May 26, 2010

H5N1 Detected in Eight Countries This Spring

The WHO deals with public health worldwide. The OIE deals with animal health. Because much of human disease comes to us via the animal kingdom, the work of the OIE is vitally important in protecting human health. This link gives info on a survey of info from the OIE.

Vetsweb - News: H5N1 virus detected in eight countries this spring

In Egypt for example, 34 infections were detected from April 1 to May 15. These infections were found at eight poultry farms of which six farms used vaccination against avian influenza.
In Indonesia, H5N1 is widespread in poultry. Here, poultry is regularly tested for the disease in over 67,000 villages. This shows that on average in 1.5 per thousand villages H5N1 is detected. Regional this can go up to nine per thousand villages.
Bangladesh showed three outbreaks of H5N1 this spring, while one infection was found in Laos at a farm with 1,000 layers. H5N1 has been found in Mongolia in wild swans. Vietnam reported outbreaks in four provinces and in Israel, H5N1 was found in two birds at a zoo.

(hat tip crofsblog)

More about the importance of OIE:

New term for Vallat as OIE director general | News | Breaking News | Feedstuffs

Dr. Bernard Vallat has been appointed for a third mandate as director general of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
This is Vallat’s third term as director general of the OIE. During the past 10 years, Vallat led OIE actions in several new issues such as animal welfare, animal production food safety and the strengthening of the veterinary services. He also gave OIE a major role to play in the international management of sanitary crisis such as H5N1 avian influenza and the recent H1N1 pandemic 2009 crisis.

(hat tip PFI/pixie)

indigo girl · Jun 5, 2010

Ezhou City, China

China Reports H5N1 Victim

She was 22yr old and pregnant. I cannot ever remember a case where the baby survives if the mother has H5N1.

We haven't heard of a human infection from H5N1 out of China in more than a year, although it is generally acknowledged that surveillance and/or reporting on bird flu from that nation is often less than optimal.
Today, however, we have a report from the Hangzhou Network of a 22 year-old woman from Ezhou City, who appears to have died from the virus on June 3rd after 10 days of illness.
More than a year ago, before the novel H1N1 virus captured all of the headlines, we were watching massive outbreaks of H5N1 in Chinese poultry, and hearing repeated warnings of avian vaccine failures...
China, with more than a billion hungry mouths to feed, has relied heavily on vaccines to protect their massive poultry industry from the H5N1 bird flu virus.
This despite warnings from the OIE (World Organization For Animal Health) which has long maintained that vaccination of poultry cannot be considered a long-term solution to combating the avian flu virus.

indigo girl · Jun 8, 2010

who confirms china's h5n1 case

h5n1: who confirms chinese h5n1 case

the case is a 22-year-old pregnant female from hubei province. she had onset of symptoms on 23 may and died on 3 june.
investigations into the source of her infection indicate exposure to sick and dead poultry. close contacts of the case are being monitored and to date all remain well.
of the 39 cases confirmed to date in china, 26 have been fatal.
that gives china a 66.6 per cent case fatality ratio--twice as high as egypt's 31.1 percent, but much lower than indonesia's 82.4 percent. all of these cfrs are of course horrendous.

indigo girl · Jun 10, 2010

H5N1 Bird Deaths in Tibet

H5N1 Bird Deaths In Tibet

In recent years we haven’t often gotten reports of large wild bird die offs out of Asia, although they were fairly common four or five years ago.
How much of this lull is due to lower levels of the virus in wild birds (or perhaps growing subclinical - asymptomatic spread), and how much may be attributed to limited surveillance and reporting is hard to know.
This machine translation indicates that while 170 dead birds have been discovered, no new bird deaths have been reported since May 25th.
A reminder that, while H5N1 has disappeared from the headlines, it still exists in the wild. And as long as it does, it poses a potential threat.

indigo girl · Jun 14, 2010

Case Study: Co-infection With HIV and Bird Flu

Case Study: Co-infection With HIV and Bird Flu

Human H5N1 infections remain rare, with only about 500 recorded over the past dozen or so years. HIV , while more common, affects less than 1% of the global population (although in some countries, that number is as high as 15%).
Accordingly, there have been few opportunities for scientists to observe HIV positive patients with an H5N1 co-infection.
We've one such case study out of Vietnam, published today in BMC Infectious Diseases...

indigo girl · Jun 19, 2010

Avian Flu Wild Bird Deaths on Russian Mongolian Border

Avian Flu Wild Bird Deaths On Russian-Mongolian Border

Migratory birds from these regions bring the virus to other parts of the world & that is why H5N1 is now in Africa, Europe, & SE Asia

where it may possibly come in contact with hosts infected with the pandemic virus, H1N1.

Nine days ago, the newshounds at FluTrackers had reports of a die off of wild birds from the H5N1 virus in Tibet (see H5N1 Bird Deaths In Tibet).
Today, new reports of bird deaths from an unspecified (but likely H5N1) avian flu, but this time it comes from the Russian-Mongolian border at Uvs Nuur lake.

indigo girl · Jun 22, 2010

Singapore

Channel NewsAsia - Avian flu jabs for Jurong Bird Park flamingos - channelnewsasia.com

This is kind of interesting. First of all, as far as I know, there has never been an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in that country. When we are talking HPAI, we usually mean, H5N1. Highly pathogenic viruses have a high kill rate (for birds, but also for people) which is why they are called highly pathogenic.

What Singapore is doing is very proactive. They are using another bird flu virus, H5N2, a low pathogenic virus (LPAI), hoping that there will be some protection from H5N1.

In the US poultry industry, for example, if a low pathogenic avain influenza (LPAI) is detected, you would start to see some of the birds looking lethargic, off their feed, and egg production might drop. Some might die, but not hugh numbers. Whole flocks would then be culled as a protective measure because given enough time, these low pathogenic viruses, will evolve into HPAI. The numbers of deaths will increase, and even more importantly, human infections could occur with disastrous consequences so they don't wait to cull the flocks. If there is an outbreak of LPAI, you will then hear reluctant press from the poultry industry, and lots of reassuring messages that there is no danger to humans. Although that is not exactly true, it does sound good. For example, check this link out: Human Illness from Avian Influenza, British Columbia | CDC EID

Ducks are the natural host for these viruses. Even if infected with an HPAI, they don't always die. This means that they can migrate, spreading the virus to other places, and to other types of birds without any natural immunity. Birds such as poultry and the flamingoes in the photo of the zoo are at high risk for a fatal event if infected. Some countries such as Egypt are using a poultry vaccine to H5N1 to protect flocks but as the viruses continually evolve, they escape the vaccine. The birds which might appear to be healthy can be shedding virus to the human population. This is probably happening in Egypt right now.

"But we are vaccinating (the birds) because...if it (the virus) is transmitted from bird to bird, it can cause a lot of mortalities, like 90 to 100 percent for H5N1."
It costs less than $1,000 to vaccinate all 8,000 birds in the Bird Park every year. But the job is time-consuming and tedious. Still, the Bird Park has been taking this exercise seriously for the past five years.
Dr Magno said: "There is a high possibility that the virus can mutate, that's why we're trying to take preventive measures in controlling other low pathogenic, other less dangerous strain, which is the strain that we are vaccinating against.
"In that way, if we prevent an outbreak from happening (involving the low pathogenic strain), then we can prevent it from mutating to a higher pathogenic strain, perhaps a strain that can infect humans."
The birds are given the H5N2 vaccine that strengthens their immune system by creating antibodies. The Bird Park says this could also increase their chances of survival against the H5N1, commonly known as bird flu.

(hat tip flutrackers/Arkanoid Legent)

indigo girl · Jun 25, 2010

songbirds, not just fowl, represent avian flu threat to us

songbirds, not just fowl, represent avian flu threat tous - journal - scott mcpherson's web presence

you should be aware that h5n1 in a low pathogenic form (lpai) already exists in north american birds. it is not the same virus as the one this thread is about, which is the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, (hpai) h5n1. confusing, right? and, just so you know, low path viruses that infect large flocks of poultry do have great potential to mutate into highly pathogenic viruses given enough time. this is why the industry will always cull the flocks if a low path virus infects them. this has frequently occurred in the poultry industry here despite protective measures.

this research is important, and scott's commentary is right on target.

over at flutrackers, there is a thread regarding the prevalence of avian influenza in american birds.
avian influenza virus (aiv) is an important public health issue because pandemic influenza viruses in people have contained genes from viruses that infect birds. the h5 and h7 aiv subtypes have periodically mutated from low pathogenicity to high pathogenicity form. analysis of the geographic distribution of aiv can identify areas where reassortment events might occur and how high pathogenicity influenza might travel if it enters wild bird populations in the us. modelling the number of aiv cases is important because the rate of co-infection with multiple aiv subtypes increases with the number of cases and co-infection is the source of reassortment events that give rise to new strains of influenza, which occurred before the 1968 pandemic. aquatic birds in the orders anseriformes and charadriiformes have been recognized as reservoirs of aiv since the 1970s. however, little is known about influenza prevalence in terrestrial birds in the order passeriformes. since passerines share the same habitat as poultry, they may be more effective transmitters of the disease to humans than aquatic birds. we analyze 152 passerine species including the american robin (turdus migratorius) and swainson's thrush (catharus ustulatus).
methods
...insightful analysis time. we always associate bird flu with ducks, or chickens, or turkeys or geese, but rarely do we associate it with songbirds and other smaller birds. this study makes a clear association between those birds (called "passerines") and bird flu.
we've got birds encroaching from the south as well as from the north. this does not just figure into the avian flu equation: there is this little thing called a major dengue fever epidemic that is raging in many, if not most, south american nations. and as i mentioned recently, key west, florida has enough dengue in it to sicken a man this year.
this all leads into the current status of h5n1 sentinel activity. with massive budget cuts, waning interest, and competition for attention from swine flu and other diseases, do we have as good a handle on things as we did in 2006 and 2007? i would like to think so, but i doubt it.

scott mcpherson is the chief infomation officer for the florida house of representatives.

indigo girl · Jun 27, 2010

EID Journal: Transmission of Bird Flu in Egypt

EID Journal: Transmission Of Bird Flu In Egypt

With a current CFR (case fatality ratio) of 31%, Egypt's fatality rates substantially lower than that seen in Vietnam (50%) and Indonesia (82%).
While there may be some subtle differences in the virus circulating in Egypt, much of the credit for this lower fatality rate has been given to earlier hospitalization and treatment.
Even with the faster, more modern medical care available in Egypt, a CFR of over 30% for influenza is still appalling.
The great pandemic of 1918 was estimated to have a CFR of between 2.5% and 5.0%.

indigo girl · Jun 29, 2010

WAHID Notification of Russian H5N1

WAHID Notification Of Russian H5N1

Over the past couple of days Russian authorities have submitted two reports to the OIE's WAHID (World Animal Health Information Database) Interface.
As expected, the laboratory testing has come back positive for highly pathogenic H5N1 and the total number of dead birds recovered is now 367.
Species affected included Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus), Goosander (Mergus merganser), Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea), Gadwall (Anas strepera), Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia).
This is the third die off of birds due to H5N1 in this region since 2006.

indigo girl · Jun 29, 2010

Thai Nguyen province, Vietnam

Vietnam reports bird flu in northern province - People's Daily Online

Bird flu occurred in a local farm of the northern Thai Nguyen province of Vietnam, said the Department of Animal Health under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on Monday.
To prevent the spread of bird flu, local authorities have taken prevention measures including slaughter of over 500 ducks infected with H5N1 influenza, said the department

(hat tip PFI/Pixie)

indigo girl · Jul 3, 2010

jakarta, indonesia

indonesia: moh confirms bird flu fatality

read the full commentary at the link above for a good overview of the reporting situation in indonesia regarding h5n1.

also, this is the first time that i have ever read anywhere that having ornamental plants around is a risk factor for infection with bird flu, so i am curious about what the possible connection would be...

this unfortunate woman was only 34 years old.

victim started to feel sick on 25 may 2010 with signs fever, coughing, breathing difficulty, nausea and muscle pain. she came to a private clinic on 27 may, and then continued to get medical care to a private hospital in tangerang on the next day.
“during hospitalization, she was worsening with severe pneumonia. on june 1 she was referred to tangerang regional hospital and died within the same day,” said tjandra.
before the illness, victim was having hobby of growing ornament plants in her yard, which is said as one of risk factor of infection. she was also reported to have had visited her parents in-law in tangerang city, a bird flu endemic area.