US launches campaign against Asia wildlife trade amid bird flu threat - Yahoo! News

US launches campaign against Asia wildlife trade amid bird flu threat .

This is very good news. The wildlife trade/disease links are profound, and more than a little scary.

Colorado Division of Wildlife: Hunter Harvested Moose Tests Positive for CWD

From the Colorado Division of Wildlife

9/29/2005
Division of Wildlife

Hunter Harvested Moose Tests Positive for CWD

The Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) has confirmed that a bull moose killed by an archer has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD)....

This is the first time that a moose has tested positive for CWD in a natural setting. Kreeger et al. reported experimental infection of moose with CWD (through oral inoculation) at the 2nd International CWD Symposium (abstract on page 54 of the symposium program).

The significance and epidemiology of this finding is unknown. Perhaps the moose could have been infected through consumption of infected faecal matter, either from elk, mule deer, or perhaps another moose. Elk and mule deer have CWD in this region (0.43% [n = 701] of elk and 1.3% [n = 235] of mule deer tested in the data analysis unit where the moose was shot were CWD positive in the 2002/3 and 2003/4 hunting seasons; data from here).

It isn't known if this moose was exhibiting clinical signs, and in Kreeger's experiment the moose all died of other causes than CWD. However, one moose did exhibit spongiform changes in the brain, suggesting that CWD might cause disease in moose.

In the past, moose have not generally been tested for CWD. I suspect that wildlife agencies will start to incorporate moose into their fall sampling activities.

We are clearly very early in our understanding of CWD epidemiology.

CP: Close relative to SARS coronavirus found in bats

Interesting article by Helen Branswell here.

Although I have yet to read the actual scientific articles, some of the people she quotes in this news story are suggesting that although they found a similar virus to SARS, they are not the same:

Dr. Earl Brown, an expert in viral evolution at the University of Ottawa, said the bat and human viruses are probably separated by 100 years of evolution, suggesting there are other as-yet unidentified species carrying coronaviruses that gave rise to the virus that jumped into humans.

"If you're trying to link up the dots . . . there's a bunch of dots missing in between,'' Brown said.

"So there's another virus or viruses that this thing has come from. But this is the closest thing they've got on the trail of dots.''

More on the reported Mongolian bird flu deaths

I spoke with a colleague that works in Mongolia, who reported the following:

"I just spoke to the veterinarians at the [Mongolian] Institure of Veterinary Medicine.  The reported avian flu in 500+ birds in 30 soums and 16 different aimags reflects citizen reports of dead birds NOT serologic evidence of AI exposure.  I am not yet sure whether or not the report of "an additional five geese, two shelduck, and four gulls were found dead at Erkhel Lake in Alag-Erdene soum, Khovsgol aimag, on September 22" is based on serologic evidence of disease or not."

As I don't want to use his/her name, I guess this information will have to be taken at face value.

UB Post: Bird toll reaches over 500

Bird toll reaches over 500
UB Post
29 Sept 2005

An additional five geese, two shelduck, and four gulls were found dead
at Erkhel Lake in Alag-Erdene soum, Khovsgol aimag, on September 22.
By September 23, the total number of birds dead from bird flu had
reached 583, in 30 soums and 16 different aimags, since its outbreak
on July 29, 2005.

The local veterinary and emergency officials have destroyed the
remains of the dead birds and disinfected the area. They are
continuing to quarantine any civilian and livestock movements near the
lake.

More birds die in Mongolia from avian flu - Yahoo! News

Yahoo! News: "ULAN BATOR (AFP) - Mongolian authorities said 563 birds have died from avian flu across the country since late July, prompting teams of emergency workers to be sent to the worst-hit areas."

With an outbreak of H5N1 earlier this year at Erhel Lake, this news doesn't seem too suprising. However, no official report has yet been made to the OIE, and the details on testing are vague. Hopefully there's more info to come ...

More on chicken soup ...

More on the bizarre statements from the Canadian Public Health Officer David Butler-Jones:

"'In a pandemic, we would see potentially 50,000 deaths in Canada. We see approximately that number of deaths in every year related to tobacco.'

A new pandemic likely wouldn't resemble the famous killer flu of 1918-1919 whose victims were often in the prime of youth, he said. More likely it would look like the epidemics of the 1950s and '60s.

That could mean having 30-40 per cent of the population sick during flu season, compared with the normal level of about five per cent.

'The individual risk - in other words my risk as a 51-year-old asthmatic during a pandemic if I get sick - my risk of dying is the same as my risk of dying every single year during influenza season."

What he is essentially saying is that any mortality risk from a pandemic avian influenza would be entirely compensatory. In other words, he's assuming that any increase in the average mortality rate across the Canadian population resulting from a pandemic influenza strain would be compensated entirely by a decrease in mortality rates from other causes. For example, assume any given person has a 5% of dying in a year (or 5% of the population will die in a year) - this is the baseline mortality rate. Then assume the mortality rate associated with a pandemic influenza is 1% (1% of the population will die of influenza). What Butler-Jones is essentially saying in this news report (assuming he was quoted correctly) is that the base-line mortality rate will go down in response to an increase in mortality from influenza, leaving the overall mortality rate essentially the same.

The simplist way to describe this assumption is that he is assuming that whoever dies of a pandemic strain, would have died from another cause. Alternatively, each death from pandemic influenza allows an equal number of people to survive. This assumption justifies this fantastic statement:

"The individual risk - in other words my risk as a 51-year-old asthmatic during a pandemic if I get sick - my risk of dying is the same as my risk of dying every single year during influenza season."


This is hogwash. All three pandemics of the 20th Century caused increases in mortality rates (e.g., see here), and there's no reason to think the next will be any different.

I can play with some numbers, but I hope no-one who reads this takes these seriously as they are totally back of the envelope.

If you take the mid-point of Butler-Jones estimate of 30-40% of the population getting pandemic influenza (35%) and multiply that by the current Canadian population of 31,946,000, possibly 11,181,100 people could become infected (this ignores age-related variation in susceptibility and regional variation in transmission rates so is certainly wrong). No-one knows how many people who gets this hypothetical pandemic influenza will die, but the Spanish Flu killed about 5% of the people who became infected. If that was the case, that would be over 500,000 deaths. In perspective, in the last year, only 233,087 people died in Canada.

This means that there isn't enough baseline mortality in Canada to compensate for an increase in 500,000 deaths!

New tool in the fight against bird flu ... chicken soup?

Public Health Minister Carolyn Bennett: "'The part that bugs me most is the bottom-up part. Does every Canadian know who their three neighbours are ... and would we be able to get them the chicken soup and not get infected?'"

In this article, this amazing statement follows another goody from Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, David Butler-Jones: "In a pandemic, we would see potentially 50,000 deaths in Canada. We see approximately that number of deaths in every year related to tobacco."

Let's see ... in the 1918/19 Spanish Flu pandemic, approximately 50,000 Canadians died. In 1918/19, Canada's population size was just over 8 million people.

There are now over 32 million people in Canada, largely living in highly dense, urban populations that are increasingly connected to communities all over the world through trade and transportation. Opportunities for disease transmission are orders of magnitude higher now, so to extrapolate a mortality prediction from a world 80 years ago that no longer exists is just ludicrous.

I'm glad their boss is on the ball, because these guys sure have dropped it ...

Move poultry out of Jakarta?

From Promed:

"Governor Sutiyoso said on Friday [16 Sep 2005] that all poultry farms in Jakarta should relocate to outside the city in order to stop the spread of avian influenza in the capital."

The Promed moderator "AS" had this comment:

"Minimizing unnecessary mixing between people and domestic poultry,
in order to limit the exposure of humans to zoonotic infections, is
epidemiologically compelling."

I agree ... reducing contact among poultry and people is a very good idea, given the apparent widespread distribution of H5N1 in poultry in Jakarta. However, without adequate surveillance of poultry that are being moved to pick up any infected birds ... isn't the problem just being exported?

Forbes: Two more human bird flu cases suspected in Indonesia as Jakarta closes zoo

Two more human bird flu cases suspected in Indonesia as Jakarta closes zoo
09.18.2005, 09:15 AM

JAKARTA (AFX) - Two more Indonesian children are suspected of having
been infected with bird flu as authorities closed the Jakarta zoo
after 19 birds there were found to be carrying the deadly virus,
officials said.

Rest of the story here.

WCS bird flu fact sheet

It's a bit dated, but good nonetheless

After the flood

I know this is a wildlife disease blog, but I am a frequent listener of "This American Life" and I was deeply moved by the "After the flood" episode (RealAudio format).

Parts made furious, other parts hopeful.

From the site:

After the Flood
Surprising stories from survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. A woman who was at the convention center talks about some things she says were widely misreported and misunderstood. Two people explain how armed police from Gretna actually prevented them from leaving New Orleans at the height of the crisis. A teenager talks about what it actually feels like to go without water for two days. And more.

Mallards and Avian Influenza Viruses, Northern Europe | CDC EID

From a new paper by Munster et al. in the upcoming issue of EID:

"Wild birds harbor the LPAI ancestral viruses of HPAI strains of poultry (and mammals). In our influenza A virus surveillance studies in wild birds in northern Europe, we detected numerous influenza A viruses of subtype H5 and H7 in Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). We show that for each of the HPAI outbreaks that occurred in Europe since 1997, we have found close LPAI relatives in Mallards. Our observations indicate that influenza A virus surveillance in wild birds provides opportunities for pandemic preparation; the prototype influenza A viruses obtained from wild birds may guide production of vaccines as well as reagents to develop and validate diagnostic tests."

Canada to host flu pandemic prep. meeting

Canada to host flu pandemic prep. meeting
by Helen Branswell
Canadian Press

Tuesday, September 13, 2005
TORONTO -- Health ministers from 20-plus developed and developing countries will meet in Canada next month to work on ways to enhance global capacity to respond to an influenza pandemic, federal government sources revealed Tuesday.

This is great news. It's unlikely that an avian influenza pandemic could be controlled by one country alone, and I'm particularly encouraged by this statement:


Part of the discussions are expected to centre around the issue of global inequity -- the fact that influenza vaccine manufacturing capacity only exists in wealthy countries, which are also the only nations that can afford to stockpile expensive antiviral drugs.

Stockpiling antivirals in developed countries not only hampers ability to control a pandemic at its source (which will likely begin in Southeast Asia), but it would probably be too little too late.

Discussion of the role of migratory birds in the spread of avian influenza A(H5N1)

Birds Korea - Fourteen Key Statements: Poultry Flu is about poultry!

Interesting commentary on the role of migratory birds in the spread of avian influenza A(H5N1), particularly on the timing of migration (Point 7 in the list).

Newsday.com: West Virginia's first case of wasting disease found

On the finding of a 2-year old male CWD-positive deer in West Virginia:

"'It's possible that it's just one deer,' [West Virginia DNR's assistant chief for game management] Johansen said." (Newsday.com)

This seems highly unlikely that the one and only CWD-positive deer was hit by a vehicle.

However, it does illustrate that CWD surveillance strategies in areas where CWD has not been found should focus on those individuals that are most likely to be positive: road-kills, clinically ill animals (as recently happened in Alberta), older bucks. This strategy increases the odds of finding a positive animal. Alberta's discovery of a CWD-positive deer through clinical surveillance is another example.

Avian influenza in Mongolia

From Promed: "The Mongolian case provides the best evidence to date for wild birds in the trans-boundary spread of H5N1 avian influenza ..."

This is a snippet of a longer post by Les Sims, Asia Pacific Veterinary Information Services. I totally agree - without large numbers of poultry in Mongolia, these isolations demonstrate that a wild bird population can host H5N1 in the absence of affected poultry. However, I think it remains to be seen how long the virus will persist. Is the basic reproductive ratio (a function of mortality rate, contact rates, length of viral shedding and other things) of H5N1 in wild migratory birds sufficiently high to maintain the virus in the long term? I just don't think we know the answer to this yet.

Avian Influenza

After a summer of travel, I'm back and am going to try and post more often again.

Here is a link to the USGS-National Wildlife Health Center's avian influenza page, which has a pdf (under Health Bulletins) with advice to people who may be handling birds. Good advice, and worth a read:

National Wildlife Health Center (NWHC): Avian Influenza: "Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), strain H5N1"