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Avian flu: H5N1 virus outbreak in migratory waterfowl (1 Viewer)

peter@swisinfo

New member
I am absolutely not trying to start a panic here, but I thought you Sea Watchers might be interested in the following article that I found yesterday at:

http://www.flu.org.cn/resources/2005777188.htm

There are two main things that prompted me to post here. The first is that after reading this report, what struck me most was the sentence at the end......

"Increased surveillance of poultry is called for because previous experience has shown that control measures become almost impossible once the virus is entrenched in poultry populations."

This worried me because it seemed to me that focussing on domestic and commercial poultry would be the wrong place to look if you wanted to get an early warning. Indeed the sentence suggests that once the virus was present in poultry populations it would be difficult to do much about it.

Surely the place to look would be at incoming migratory waterfowl.

The second thing was that I had recently come across what appeared to be a sick gull on the beach at Bridlington. I was only mildly concerned at the time, but after reading this I started to wonder............

So, in brief I wondered if I might suggest that the Sea Watchers might like to keep an eye open for sick birds, and especially any "bar-headed geese as well as some brown-headed gulls (Larus brunnicephalus), great black-headed gulls (Larus ichthyaetus) and great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo)"
 
"Surely the place to look would be at incoming migratory waterfowl.



The second thing was that I had recently come across what appeared to be a sick gull on the beach at Bridlington. I was only mildly concerned at the time, but after reading this I started to wonder............"



Your "sick gull" was probably affected by botulism, salmonella or e-coli from feeding at some open faced rubbish tip.



Some further reading on H5N1 virus :-



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H5N1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avian_flu



And just to re-inforce your concerns, the following page from the World Health Organisation states something which has already brought concern to yourself :-



Section 5 of the following :-



http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/avian_faqs/en/#howdoes



But the contents should in reality be taken with a sense of "may and can happen", not "will definitely happen" and what are the probabilities??



Regards



Malky
 
Identifying birds with Avian Flu

>Your "sick gull" was probably affected by botulism, salmonella or e-coli from feeding at some open faced rubbish tip.<

I'm sure you are probably right.

It does raise the point tho' about how to differentiate between your average sick bird and one that might be infected with H5N1.

To quote from the article:

"Clinical findings included paralysis, unusual head tilt, staggering and neck thrill - all are known features of H5N1 disease in waterfowl."

What is 'neck thrill' anyway?
 
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