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Some Assorted Bird Flu Reports

 

 

 

 

# 4848

 

 

Late summer is generally a quiet time for bird flu reports, as the H5N1 virus tends to spread more easily during cooler weather.

 

Still, Egypt has reported two human infections in August, and a lack of timely reporting out of China and Indonesia doesn’t exactly guarantee that all is quiet in those countries.

 

So - even in these dog days of August - we keep our eyes open for reports that either suggest or confirm bird flu, even if many of these stories appear relatively minor.

 

With that in mind, a small selection of bird flu reports from the past couple of days, gathered by newshounds in Flublogia.

 

Ida at the Bird Flu Information Corner - a joint effort between Kobe University in Japan and the Institute of Tropical Disease, Airlangga University, Indonesia – has a pair of stories this morning.

 

Meulaboh, Aceh ::: Meulaboh’s chickens test positive bird flu.

Meulaboh – Chickens in Seuneubok village, kecamatan (sub-district) Johan Pahlawan, Meulaboh, West Aceh found to have suddenly died since Friday (27/8).

 

Further investigation by Participatory Disease Surveillance and Response (PDSR), Agriculture of Livestock Service West Aceh confirmed those chickens died of bird flu H5N1.

 

Control measures had been taken by burning and burying dead chickens, also by culling the survivors.

Source: Indonesia local newspaper, Serambi News.

 

A little geography for those unfamiliar with the area.

 

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Meulaboh is the capital of the West Aceh Regency, Indonesia and was among the hardest hit areas by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

 

 

Indonesia ::: Forty percent bird flu victims in Indonesia are children

National Committee of Avian Influenza Control and Influenza Pandemic Preparedness (Komnas FPBI) recorded forty percent of 160 bird flu victims in Indonesia are children.

 

This was stated by Communication Specialist Staff, Arie Rukmantara in Padang, West Sumatera, Sunday (29/8) at a meeting of animal and human bird flu information dissemination for West Sumatera authorities.

 

“Data was taken from 2006 to 2009. Of forty percent cases mostly occurred in Jakarta, Banten and Surabaya,” said Arie.

 

Source: Indonesia TV news, Metro News.

 

Not exactly a surprising result, given that in the relatively brief history of H5N1, the virus has shown a decided predilection for the young. 

 

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It isn’t known whether this pronounced shift towards younger victims is due to physiological, societal, or environmental reasons (or perhaps, a combination of factors).

 

 

 

Dutchy, posting on FluTrackers, has the following (somewhat confusing) item from China’s People’s Daily.  

 

While calling this outbreak in the Mongolian Capital `Bird Flu’, it also references `Newcastle’, which is a different type of avian disease entirely. 

 

Machine translations are often difficult to decipher, so we’ll probably need to wait for additional reports to get a better feel for what is going on in Ulan Bator.

 

 

Bird flu outbreak in Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator
on the August 30, 2010
 
People's Network in Ulaanbaatar on August 30 (Xinhua Robert Footman), according to local media reports, the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator-uul District 13, Area 27, a poultry farm confirmed bird flu. 28, Khan uul District, Area 13, the Government decided the area around the implementation of martial law there is an outbreak, local emergency office set up emergency headquarters, and to disinfect the affected areas, testing and other prevention work.

 

It was reported recently discovered that some of the farm raising chickens died due to unknown reasons, the epidemic prevention departments to conduct blood tests on 50 chickens to determine the chickens infected with avian flu as "Newcastle (Ньюкасл)" caused by the virus. Mongolia Emergency Committee today held a meeting to study the outbreak response.

 

 

Lastly, a small blurb appeared in my RSS feed this morning reporting that in the wake of recent bird flu reports out of Egypt, Bahrain has raised their bird flu alert level.

 

Bahrain on the alert for bird flu

 

Frankly, this is such a generic report, devoid of any real detail, that it could easily be a `phantom’ story from the past.  We get those occasionally, regurgitated from the news archives, and stamped with today’s date.

 

Pending  corroboration, my confidence in the age of this report is fairly low.

 

While bird flu reports have been on the back burner for the past year or so, it is worth remembering that H5N1 remains in Pre-Pandemic Phase III.  

 

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Outbreaks occur primarily in birds, but sporadic widely scattered human cases are reported as well, particularly in Indonesia and Egypt.   Most (but not all) have been linked to close contact with infected poultry or birds.

 

The virus has yet to adapt well enough to human hosts to transmit effectively between people, although scientists still worry that the virus could mutate into a pandemic strain someday.

Related Post:

H5N1
Bird Flu
Indonesia

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