BIRD FLU: DEVELOPMENTS & MEASURES

Bird flu cover-up alleged
By David Wroe and Connie Levett
October 21, 2005/the AGE


A sanitary worker disinfects a train in an area of Romania hit by the bird flu outbreak.
Photo: AFP

INDONESIA covered up a bird flu epidemic in its poultry industry for nearly two years until the disease began infecting people, a former top health official has claimed.

Australia's northern neighbour is considered by many experts to be a likely flashpoint for a pandemic that could kill tens of thousands of Australians and millions of people worldwide.

Indonesia's former national director of animal health, Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, said officials knew in 2003 that chickens were dying from bird flu, but kept it quiet because of lobbying from the poultry industry.

She was fired by the Agriculture Ministry after making the claim.

UN officials later complained that her dismissal had set back efforts to fight the disease. ... <cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bird-flu-coverup-alleged/2005/10/20/1129775901802.html

Informative & very interesting Avian Bird Flu flash feature:

http://www.theage.com.au/flash/bird_flu/birdFluAGE.html

Very worrying, hey?
So what developments in your part of the world?

Last Update: Friday, October 21, 2005. 4:00pm (AEST)



Canada plays down bird flu scare

The (Australian) federal Government may impose a blanket ban on all live bird imports after the discovery of Canadian pigeons with bird flu antibodies in Melbourne.

Officials in Toronto say Canada met all international requirements for the pigeons that were exported to Australia.

Three of the pigeons were found to have antibodies for avian flu but quarantine officials say there is no health threat to the public or the local bird population.

Another four of the birds had strains of newcastle disease and the affected birds have been destroyed.

Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran says Canada's testing regime is to blame.

"I'm reassured that the Australian system works so well but I am disturbed that the Canadian authorities certified these birds as disease free," he said.

But the spokesman for Canada's Minister of Agriculture insisted that Canada had not been negligent.

The pigeons had been tested before they left Canada, but Canadian labs only look for the live virus, which is dangerous.

When the birds arrived in Australia they were found to have antibodies for avian flu, but the spokesman said that antibodies were not dangerous.... <cont>

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1487872.htm[size=7][/size]

It's a diversion because our government has ignored what has been happening in Indonesia. Downer told us no worries about Indonesia. I don't believe that for one second. And now they get a chance to stir up this business with Canada. Sorry, it's transparent. Pity our media wasn't so dull-witted though. But they'll dutifuly run the government's story re a few Canadian pigeons while ignoring the corruption in Indonesia that is the real threat to us.

Regarding the Canadian story: to be fair to the media, it happened & they reported it. I suspect they would have been criticized if they hadn't, given the concern & interest about Avian flu. And they reported the Canadian authority's side of the story, too. The AGE also quoted the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service: Antibodies carried by the birds showed they had come into contact with some form of bird flu virus, though not necessarily the H5N1 strain currently sweeping through Asia and parts of Eastern Europe. They posed no risk to humans or Australian birds, the spokesman said. All things considered, I think they did a reasonable job of this story.

But hey,gf, wouldn't you just love Alexander D to ask the Indonesian government for an "adequate explanation" of the alleged cover up & corruption story? You're right, there are far more serious implications there. If it's good enough to ask the Canadians then why not Indonesia? :wink:

Right now I think it might be best for everyone if importing & exporting of birds ceased for a bit. Check out that world map above in the flash feature link. This virus is spreading alarmingly quickly.

the best explanation i heard came yesterday from three scientists being interviewed. while they started out with different ideas about the possible outcome of a pandememic, i.e. how many people might be killed worldwide, they agreed in the end that it is a threat to be taken seriously.
they compared it to living in an earthquake zone. you cannot prevent an earthquake from taking place, but you can construct buildings that withstand an earthquake without causing undue loss of live. you can also set up an emergency recovery system to spring into action quickly once an earthquake has occured.
they did not think quarantine would be able to control the spraed of the virus, since it is initially transported by wild birds - and they know no borders.
it seems to me that governments and health authorities worldwide can set up systems that would reduce the number of death occuring at the outset of a pandemic and set up recovery teams to deal with the aftermath.
it also seems that scientists have not been able yet to come up with a "most likely" scenario. there are many different points of view even - or especially - among scientists.
of course, one of the big questions is : who will pay for the research necessary and who will foot the bill for setting up medical teams to deal with a pandemic ? the money would have to come from "somewhere".
(side note : some scientists have suggested that the young might be most at risk from the virus since their bodies do not yet have the "resources" to fight of an infection. it was also thought possible that those people only one generation away from the 1918 "spanish flu" might carry antibodies passsed on from their parents that would give them a somewhat better chance to fight of infection).
it seems that much more attention was paid to last year's "regular" flu - even though this new avian flu could turn out to be much more deadly.
btw the scientists agreed that people should make sure they get their regular flushots, so that they would not have to fight two different infections at once. hbg

Bird flu spreads in Europe:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16999928%255E601,00.html

Interesting graphics, Olga... (from the previous page). I thought that timeline was especially amazing. Scary stuff.

Australia says it will close all boat and airports if there is an outbreak? Yikes.

(It did seem strange to blame Canada when you're so very close to Indonesia.)

a/t german news service , "deutsche welle", all tests have shown that - so far - all transmissions of the birdflu have been either "animal to animal" or "animal to human". apparently no "human to human" transmissions have been found. this seems to indicate that there has not been a mutant strain.
another report states that the concern is that a transmission from"bird to swine to human" would more likely produce a mutant strain. since in china/indonesia ... birds, swine and humans often live in close proximity, a mutation could start more easily there.
a scientist said yesterday that one concern is the consumption of raw bird meat and bird blood in east asia; this again could prove to be a possible source for mutation. apparently it is not uncommon to drink the blood from from fighting cocks (to gain strength by drinking the blood ?).
as an aside : in toronto great efforts have been made over the years to prevent cockfights from taking place . however, it has so far been impossible to stamp out this practice in certain community groups . these cockfights are organized with a great deal of secrecy, and both the humane society and local police have been unable to put a stop to it. i understand there are fairly substantial bets placed during those fights and the organizers are pretty careful in organizing these events. hbg

bird flu
here is a link to a report in today's "globe and mail" , toronto's and canada' most respected newspaper.
it carried out interviews with some of toronto's senior health officials, including allison mcgeer, an infectious disease expert who was involved in the battle against SARS. you might recall that SARS, even though it killed only 44 people in 2003, resulted in toronto and ontario - and even canada - becoming known as a place were this disease had gained a foothold in north-america. toronto lost a great deal of tourist and convention business and the hospitality industry is just now beginning to recover from the economic loss it caused.
it certainly is a report that makes me sit up and take notice. hbg

...BIRD FLU...

Erm... Piffka, when it comes to "relations" with Indonesia the Australian government is very, er... "careful" about what it says. A touchy relationship, to put it mildly! As gf suggested in his earlier post, the Oz authorities would not be beyond emphasizing the Canadian bird import problems to avoid too much scrutiny of the cover-ups that have apparently occurred in Indonesia. (Oz government of both persuasions have tended to be rather blind & very appeasing toward many dodgy happenings there in the not so distant past. Indonesia sees scrutiny of it's "internal affairs" as meddling. <sigh> But they're our very close neighbour & complications & problems of all sorts starting there can impact here, as we often observe. For example "people smuggling" (another LONG story! ), illegal fishing off Oz the coastline, etc. Relations have been testy between the two countries since Australia became involved in peacekeeping activities in East Timor, following East Timor's first election & efforts toward independence from Indonesia. A very nasty situation for the East Timorese. The fact that Oz supported East Timor (rightly, I believe) against the Indonesians really soured the relationship. The relationship between Indonesia & Australia warrants a thread in itself!) Anyway, to cut my rambling short, yes, the Australian government did appear to put a lot more emphasis (& blame, I guess) on Canada & did it's usual softly, softly routine on Indonesia. What I was trying to say earlier was that I felt that the Oz media had not necessarily bought the government line, lock stock & barrel, but were reporting developments as they happened. Mind you, I was commenting on the more "respectable" media coverage I'd seen. Maybe the more sensationalist media treated it differently? I don't often go there. Perhaps I should more often?

Re: bird flu


Thanks for your informative & thoughtful posts, hamburger. The news article (link) is very sobering indeed.
It's interesting, all these reports in the media about the latest "hot spots" but so little to actually educate people about precautions they need to take to protect themselves as best they can against what's looking like an inevitable worldwide health crisis. And all these reports of governments stock-piling (hoarding?)drugs for when the virus hits. I foresee huge political ramifications regarding who gets the treatment & who doesn't. Which countries can afford the drugs & which can't.
And when (not if) the full scale of the virus becomes a reality, what effects will this have on golbalization & the ability of people to move freely between country to country? I can easily foresee demands for quite repressive measures in many countries as people become more alarmed at the scale of the crisis.

That's cos there ain't hardly no precautions!

Cepting don't live with your birds.


That and closing borders, which won't work cos people will already have got in with the thing.


Oh, and not going out and such, only, again, people spreading it will be asymptomatic.


Basically, ain't no use worrying, Msolga.

If you die, you die.


They are testing a vaccine in Adelaide and Melbs (there's another thread with info) but it will take a while to produce....think months.


There is already resistance to the thing against anti viral drugs we have.


It's a bit of a race between vaccine and mutation.


BTW, we are sending help and drugs to Indonesia.

Yes, I've heard about how we're supplying drugs to Indonesia, Deb. Also read about the new vaccine being developed here. Not much detail available on that yet, apart from they're working on it.

My last post was written after reading the article hamburger sent. It was an interesting read. Amongst other things, it suggested that folk ought to be being educated, informed about common sense precautions like washing your hands, etc. That now was the time to be doing those things, not later when were in the midst of a crisis. Our government has said very little about such things, as of yet. Some sort of plan of action of sorts might not be a bad thing. If we can prepare for a terrorist attack then surely we can prepare for bird flu, too!

Yep, I know that closing borders will achieve very little. But I reckon panicked people are going to demand it, anyway. Keeping out people & animals from affected countries. (Probably meaning from Asia, Africa, other under-developed countries. The very countries that won't be able to afford the vaccine unless the world community assists.)

Try as I may, Deb, I can't be too relaxed & comfortable about dying. I'm not panicking but I'm not in what-ever will be, will be mode, either! :wink:

I wish that the state authorities here in Victoria hadn't closed our only infectious diseases hospital a few years back, despite public protest. It might have come in handy!

the scientists who were interviewed on TV stated that closing borders/quarantine won't work because the virus travels in wild birds - and they don't respect borders. they also showed how the flightpaths of wild birds around the world cross one another. i assumed that the wild birds in north-america would have little or no contact with wild birds from other continents. i was wrong ! alaska and northern canada is one area where birds from from north=america, africa/europe and asia cross each others pass !
as the article pointed out, it would not really be feasible to close down large areas of the country either because we all need food, water, power ...
so people would continue to mingle.
is the world perhaps overpopulated and it's natures way of trying to arrive at a sustainable balance ?
washing hands is certainly a good practice, but i doubt that it would prevent a virus from spreading when SARS hit toronto, nurses and other medical staff were wearing "space-suits" and still got infected. there are quite a few nurses in toronto who still suffer from the after-effect of having been exposed to SARS and some are suing the government for compensation (it just leaked out recently in a newspaper report - but neither the medical authorities nor the government is publicizing it. they are somewhat "coy" about it !).
sleep well ! hbg

Someone should tell those birds about borders!

But seriously what can governments do to prepare us all, I wonder? Obviously it's going to happen & it's going to be big.