H5N1 Moves Closer
To Europe By The Day
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
8-16-5
Please check out the map at the URL provided below. The map does show
the progress of H5N1 from Asia into Russia and approaching Europe.
Patty
(Pro Med Mail - As the H5N1 avian influenza virus has spread thoughout
Asia, our posts on non-humans have spread to different threads for
different geographical areas and different avian species. In order to
simplify the threads we are starting a new unifying thread, "Avian
influenza - Asia", which will encompass much of what before had been
in an ever increasing number of threads. - Mod.DK)
Russia Says Dangerous Bird Flu Outbreak Spreads
By Guy Faulconbridge
8-17-5
(Reuters) -- Russia said on Tuesday (8-16-5] an outbreak of bird flu
in Chelyabinsk was dangerous to humans, as teams of sanitary workers
destroyed birds [domestic? wild? - see comment] in Siberia in an
attempt to prevent the westward spread of the deadly virus.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu is behind the outbreak in Chelyabinsk, a
city in the Ural mountains, the Emergencies Ministry said in a
statement.
It said no cases among humans have been confirmed in Russia.
"Measures are being taken to prevent the spreading of the infection
among domestic birds and to exclude the possibility of the infection
moving to humans," the statement added. Russia is battling to contain
a bird flu outbreak, which top health officials say has killed more
than 11 000 birds countrywide and could spread westwards to Europe,
the Middle East and Africa.
The outbreak was discovered in mid-July 2005 in Novosibirsk and has
spread through Tyumen, Omsk, Kurgan, Altai and now Chelyabinsk, which
is about 1000 km (600 miles) from Novosibirsk.
Senior agricultural officials believe the flu was brought by migrating
birds from Asia, where more than 50 people have died from the deadly
H5N1 strain since 2003.
Officials fear that the virus could spread to Europe and Africa as
tens of millions of birds continue their migration to warmer climates
from next month ahead of Russia's harsh winter.
Chelyabinsk lies in the Ural mountains, the geographic divide between
Asia and Europe. Russia's top state epidemiologist, Gennady
Onishchenko, said migratory birds move on to warmer areas in southern
Russia, Africa and Europe in the autumn after nesting in Siberia.
But the diversity of Siberia's bird species makes plotting the flight
paths of the birds difficult, specialists in Moscow said.
"There are about 800 different species of birds in Russia and so there
are many different migration flows which criss-cross Russian
territory," said Dr. Pavel Tomkovich, a senior ornithologist at
Moscow's Zoological Museum.
He said water fowl will leave to winter in warmer climates, flying
through Russia's southern regions, northern Kazakhstan, the Caspian
and Black seas towards the Mediterranean and north Africa. That
would/could take infected birds through Russia's agricultural
heartland in the south.
Health officials were meeting in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss the
situation, the state's consumer watchdog said.
In parts of Chelyabinsk, barriers were placed on roads and local
officials imposed a ban on the sale of all poultry products, the
Itar-Tass news agency reported. Farmers are being compensated for
birds which were being destroyed, the agency said.
Bird flu comes in different stains, such as H5 and H7, which have 9
different subtypes. The H5N1 subtype is highly pathogenic and can be
passed from birds to humans, though there have been no cases of
human-to-human transmission.
Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova
.
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