India has declared itself avian flu-free. Unlikely, but technically correct, at least in the sense of the definition of the Office International des Epizooties (OIE, the World Organization for Animal Health).
India first detected highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 in its poultry flocks earlier this year (2006):
Outbreak of bird flu was first reported on February 18 in Navapur and Uchchal districts of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Further outbreak was reported in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra and it spilled over to the adjoining areas of Madhya Pradesh.
The last outbreak was detected on April 18 in Jalgaon district. There has been no case after April 18. (Hindu Times)
OIE regulations (Article 2.7.12.4 of the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code) require three months without detection after initiation of a culling, disinfection and surveillance operation is initiated. India says that intensive surveillance around the affected areas in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and general surveillance throughout the country has revealed no further evidence of H5N1 infection. Officials sources say that 67,000 samples were tested (Hindustani Times).
According to the letter of OIE regulations, then, it would appear India has a claim to be considered avian-flu free. Realistically, however, it is not very likely. The virus is probably lurking somewhere in the vast Indian subcontinent and is certainly in the region. The unavoidable difficulty with criteria like the OIE's is that a single detection will begin a new round of culling and start the clock again. Thus there is an irresistible bias against notification and detection.
Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and China are all reporting infections. If India lasts another month we'll be surprised. But then we've been surprised before. Good luck to them.
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If the leaders of Thailand and Indonesia want their countries to be free of human bird flu infections, they had better get their butts in gear, and start testing mammals for H5N1 in the areas where there are clusters of human H5N1 infections.
If I have to read one more time a report on a patient infected with H5N1 in these 2 countries, where it is specified the public health authorities are looking for the source of the infection in pet birds or infected chickens, I will vomit.
The recent strains of human H5N1 from Indonesia conclusively show that mammals may be the source of these infections. A report from the Pasteur Institute in Indonesia in 2005 stated the virus is moving into mammals, and that the mammalian strains of H5N1 could be the source of human H5N1 infections.
Culling birds is good, because it may stop H5N1 from going H2H. But it is not the present source of human H5N1 infections. The source is probably not avian. The source is probably mammalian.
So an exclusive concentration of sick birds as the source of human H5N1 infections is similar to what Army doctors did during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. In 1918, some of these doctors, in a desperate attempt to stop their patients from dying, injected hydrogen peroxide into their veins. Of course, it did not work.
To concentrate now on sick chickens as the source of human H5N1 infections is stupid, a waste of time and energy, counter-productive, ignorant, useless, destructive, retarded, a great tragedy, dumb, and will only allow human infections to spread.
If these public health officials in Asia want to do stupid things to stop bird flu in humans, why don't they inject half of their sick infected H5N1 infected patients with hydorgen peroxide; and with the other half, open their veins a drain large amounts of blood out of their bodies.
Perhaps it will stop human H5N1 infections.
It is time to start checking the blood of cats, dogs, and pigs in the areas of clusters of H5N1 human infections. There is more chance your dog or cat will infect you with H5N1, than there is a bird will do it. To delay may cause a great human tragedy to unfold.
"It is time to start checking the blood of cats, dogs, and pigs in the areas of clusters of H5N1 human infections."
William...add to the list... bats, mice, rats and small shore-line mammals that would encounter migratory birds, their carcasses and waste products.
Tom DVM,
I almost have tears of joy and happiness in my eyes, knowing, someone agrees with me. Of course you are correct in including other mammals, as I completely neglected to do.
The source could be any type of mammal. I believe it is probably the rat. If it is the rat, Vice President Cheney plans to send us all into the sewers of our largest cities to cull the rats there. Cheney does not want to kill the healthy rats, because he keeps rats as pets home, and he loves his pet rats very much. If we refuse to cull rats in sewers, he intends to place us in the prisons Halliburton is building to hold illegal immigrants.
Cheney realizes there are too many fat people in the US population, so he decided that chasing rats in sewers will burn a lot of calories, and is a very healthy way in order to loose weight. Have you ever tried to catch a rat infected with H5N1 in a sewer? Cheney says he has, and that it is a lot of fun. Besides chasing rats in sewers, Cheney likes to shoot lawyers while on vacation; and while working, he likes to plan to nuke Iran and Syria. Actually Cheney should be respected for his dedication to the cause of killing lawyers, nuking innocent civilians, and stopping the spread of avian flu in humans.
In a recent post last week here at EffectMeasure, Henry Niman stated he believes the highest probability for the source of human H5N1 infections would be either pigs or humans. If it discovered it is humans, I recommend getting drunk and staying drunk until the pandemic, in all its stages, over a period of several years, passes. It is possible the alcohol in beer, wine, and whiskey will kill the virus. And if it does not, at least being drunk will help, as I watch the people arond me die, or until the virus kills me. And when all the stores are empty of food and beer, I will have to sober up.
If it is humans, of course we will have to cull them. Meaning we will have to separate out thiose infected human mammals from the rest, and kill them. ( I am joking of course.) Who would want to eliminate the mammal that may soon drop nuclear bombs on other mammals of this type, (meaning other humans) in Iran; and that, thanks to capitalism, is producing what may be irreversible global warming, that may terminate permanently this type of mammal on the planet. Obviously humans are an endangered species that need to be protected, even though they breed like rabbits, and are overpopulating the planet beyond its carrying capacity.
If I were a dog, and realized all this; I would request that all humans be destroyed in order to protect my puppies.
Tom DVM,
I forgot to mention Thailand has now reported 46 new suspected human bird flu cases. This may indcate the exclusive concentration of sick birds as the source for human H5N1 infections will allow the virus to spread to more human hosts, and kill some of them.
This is criminal negligence.
Tom DVM what a great post. Lets try a scientific experiment. Stockpile lots of sleeping pills and booze. If you get H5N1, go to bed with your stockpile beside you. Any time you wake up, dose yourself back to sleep. If you die it will be better than being conscious that you are dying. If you live you can announce the cure to those who are still alive and get a Nobel Peace Prize.
One scary thought tho = several scientists have begun to look into how Global Dimming slows Global Warming. While Greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere a long long time, the particles that cause dimming drop out quickly. If lots of workers in China get sick and the factories there (and elsewhere) stop spewing out pollution, it is possible that Global Warming will RACE ahead. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_prog_summary…
Well we all die in the end - the question is WHEN, HOW, and do we leave PROGENY?
Hate to be so glum but IMO the times warrant it.
k,
I was responding to Tom DVM, but the person that wrote the post is at the bottom of the post.
I, William, wrote all this nonsense about getting drunk.
I have always wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and perhaps at the same time, stop H5N1 infections in humans.
Old news by now. Unfortunately, I long ago stopped believing anything I was told by the White House.
Thanks William
I will be interested to see if any influenza H5N1 shows up in bats, given all the work being done on emerging diseases in those creatures - but I think that, while it's infinitely possible that there are mammals involved in the transmission and perpetuation of the disease, it's premature to ignore prevention (and I am not a fan of culling in the situation where village chickens are part of the issue eg South East Asia) in poultry and other birds.
It is interesting to look a Declan's map of poultry density in the world and wonder about India. One difference that could be significant it the way India raises chickens. It is still largely a backyard poultry with traditional varieties of poultry. Though modern chicken farms are present, India does not participate in the global trade in in chickens (chicks and meat) that Thailand and China have been involved in during the las decade or two. The poultry in huge confinements is more genetecally uniform and is traded extensively. i.e globally.
True, mammals must be watched now, but India is also technically free of H5N1 in poultry. Rather amazing, really.
Ron. I think you have 'hit the nail on the head' regarding emerging diseases of all types and particularly those caused by novel viruses.
Factory farms of the recent past (20 years) remained below the threshold to allow sigificant evolution of viruses.
The recent explosion in factory farm size has passed the tipping point and thus the emergence of several new viral threats to humans from wild virus subtypes after repeated and sufficient passages through factory farm populations.
It's probably going to continue until these farms return to managble sizes and the lobby that influences politicians loses its relative power.
It continues to amaze me how we inadvertently tip the balance of nature by not understanding that it is a subtle and sensitive system with many low threshold tipping points on several levels including pathogens.
Ron, Tom: I have always found the factory farm hypothesis attractive (and was glad to give Ron a platform for it well over a year ago), but let's be clear it is far from established and may have just given the conditions for this virus to emerge but once out, it is irretrievable, factory farms or not. There are also lots of other possibilities. I am not much persuaded byu India as evidence for it, mainly because I think the idea they are flu free is (to put it charitably) unlikely.
Revere. Pretty soon there isn't going to be a flu free country in the world for the next century (H5N1 endemic)
I just read the article in discovery where they were talking about the novel virus (paramyxo) (name has slipped my mind...brain cramp!!) that evolved in Cambodia (I think). It's emergence has been attributed to specifically the size of pig herds in the 1990's.
We must ask ourselves the fundamental question. Was H5N1 going to emerge evolve and produce a pandemic independent of mankind...or has the balance of nature been tipped by mankind and this includes the development of factory farms with unheard of animal populations.
It is my opinion, that the only reason we are where we are today (many significant public health threats from MANY pathogens)...
...is not because of industrial factory farming but because the size of these farms has pushed us over the tipping point...they have become highly efficient pathogen culture and development laboratories.
Either they go or we go...
...a hundred years from now, the H5N1 pandemic of 2007 may have seemed like a 'head cold'.