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| Bird flu reaches Britain | |||
| 2005-10-22 | |||
The first case of bird flu has been found in Britain, the Government said last night. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs said that a parrot has died from bird flu in quarantine. It said the H5 strain of the virus was isolated in a parrot imported from South America, which arrived in this country in mid-September. It marks the first case of the flu which is sweeping across the world from Asia in wildfowl and domestic birds.
The H5N1 strain of influensa is dangerous because humans have no resistance to it but only a handful of cases have so far crossed from birds through very close contact. But the incident means the general population of farmed and wild birds is still free from the disease and normal quarantine measures have been effective. Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds said: "The confirmed case does not affect the UK's official disease free status because the disease has been identified in imported birds during quarantine. The bird was part of a mixed consignment of 148 parrots and "soft bills" that arrived on September 16. They were being held with a consignment of birds from Taiwan. The birds, which were being held in a biosecure quarantine unit, have all been humanely culled, Defra said.
Defra stressed it was "very difficult" for humans to contract avian influenza but all those who came in contact with the culled consignment have been given antiviral treatment. Micro-biologist Professor Hugh Pennington said he was not surprised by bird flu had reached Britain. "The thing about the H5N1 strain is that it's very good at getting about. I wouldn't have been all that surprised if there was an announcement of that sort." But he said he was a relief to know that the case was not among wild birds. "If that happened it would be very difficult to know where the bird had come from," he added. Earlier this week, Markos Kyprianou, the EU health commissioner, told an emergency meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg that the apparently relentless march of the disease westwards from Asia was unlikely to stop soon. "All evidence indicates that the virus can be spread by wild migratory birds," he said. "This means that we cannot exclude outbreaks in other areas." The Government's Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, said a bird flu pandemic would kill about 50,000 people in Britain but he was hopeful it would not strike as soon as this winter. But Sir Liam admitted it was now a question of "when, not if" the disease infecting birds in Asia and the fringes of eastern Europe mutated into a deadly form of human influenza. The number of deaths in Britain could reach 750,000 if the human strain were particularly serious, although a lower figure was more realistic, he said.
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| Posted by:lotp |
| #1 A Norwegian Blue, was it? |
| Posted by: john 2005-10-22 19:28 |