HKBWS BBS 香港觀鳥會新聞組


    
      
        HKBWS BBS 香 港 觀 鳥 會 新 聞 組
        (http://www.hkbws.org.hk/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl)
      

        Special Topics 特別主題 >> Wild Birds & Avian Flu 野鳥與禽流感 >>  H5N1 - Info. from USGS 禽流感:來自美國地質勘測局的消息
        
(Message started by: Project Officer on Feb 6^th, 2004, 9:42pm)

Title: H5N1 - Info. from USGS 禽流感:來自美國地質勘測局的消息
Post by Project Officer on Feb 6^th, 2004, 9:42pm

Message forwarded from BirdLife International headquarter for your reference.

Quote"

Good morning all,

Martin, thanks for that useful update.

It is becoming clearer that there is very little nequivocal evidence of wild birds being responsible for the spread of the H5N1 - but clearly more needs to be done through additional work.

The remark of dead birds not moving far is interesting - presumably refers to birds being carried by predators and along water courses if the birds fell into them.

Attached is information just in from the USGS and makes interesting reading.

Avian bird flu contacts in BirdLife, kindly forward this to Leon Bennun as I do not have his email.

With best wishes, Taej

Dr. Taej Mundkur
Coordinator, Asia-Pacific Waterbird Strategy Coordination Unit
Wetlands International

"Unquote

http://www.hkbws.org.hk/fileServer/Projectofficer/conservation/USGS_info.jpg

Title: Re: H5N1 history - information from USGS
Post by yvonne chan on Feb 7^th, 2004, 7:33pm

It is informative. Thank you.

Title: "dead birds" not flying; 1918 bird flu
Post by Martin Williams on Feb 14^th, 2004, 4:01pm

Taej's comment re dead ducks not flying far may seem odd when out of context; referred to an email I received from a US poultry disease expert, mentioning that wild birds maybe not behind spread as in her experience sick and dead birds don't fly far - I figured this was dry humour (ie they don't fly at all), Taej took literally.

The transmission route diagram above shows - for pandemix flus (ie very efficient at human to human transmission) - presumed transmission to man via pigs; but recent research indicates that 1918 flu was v close to bird flu, so just possible it came direct from birds, then made changes needed for human to human.
(And once it had made those changes, it went on to become biggest killing disease [in span of three years] in history; happily then went extinct, with one idea being it infected everyone it could, and they either died or became immune. WHO folk keenly aware of this; hence urgency in trying to stamp out this h5n1 variant).

SCM Post today had couple more people reckoning migratory birds could spread this variant, inc Dr Man of Green Power, which especially disappointing. (We know wild birds can catch it and die; as yet uncertain if they can even spread it locally.)