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2005-08-15 Home Front: Tech

Russia warns bird flu may spread to Europe, mid-east, following bird migration routes

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Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 10:15|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Moose, tomorrow, next year, never, take your pick.

Posted by Chuck Simmins">Chuck Simmins 2005-08-15 10:39|| http://blog.simmins.org]">[http://blog.simmins.org] 2005-08-15 10:39|| Front Page Top

#2 Three scenarios. First, the avian flu devastates China; possibly precluding a major war between China and the US or China and India. Second, the avian flu devastates the middle east, further destabilizing several of the dictatorships in the region; though doubtful that it would effect US forces in the region. Third, that the flu only becomes terribly lethal after it has hit the western world. Granted, their total casualties might be smaller, but it could have terrible economic and social ramifications. In any event, I prefer that westerners be very aware of the deadly possibilities of this, the #1 potential human disease. Their greater awareness of hygiene and risk avoidance offers them much protection, but with flu, timing is everything, and some timely behavioral modification may prevent much unneeded tragedy.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 14:42|| 2005-08-15 14:42|| Front Page Top

#3 H5N1 was first isolated in wild birds in Scotland nearly 50 years ago. While a lot of people are obsessing over this, H5N1 is already in European wild birds and has been for a very long time.

The issue is, are the birds carrying a strain capable of transmitting to humans and potentially transmitting (sustained) H2H. We know the gene sequences of the strain(s) that are jumping to humans in SE Asia from domestic birds. And I have quizzed the people who study gene sequences. There is no direct evidence that those strains are in any wild birds, never mind in the birds migrating to Europe.

Pandemic H5N1 will originate in SE/E Asia and arrive at an international airport near you, not in migrating birds.

Posted by phil_b 2005-08-15 17:47|| 2005-08-15 17:47|| Front Page Top

#4 What about the massive wild bird kills in China? Have those been dismissed?

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 18:27|| 2005-08-15 18:27|| Front Page Top

#5 Moose, Well in excess of 100 million domestic birds have either died from H5N1 or been culled as suspected infected. In comparison, a few thousand wild birds dying, I wouldn't call massive. In addition, a strain that kills wild birds may or may not be lethal to humans and lethality in birds is almost certainly unrelated to transmissability in humans, which is the issue.

Posted by phil_b 2005-08-15 19:38|| 2005-08-15 19:38|| Front Page Top

#6 It's all in the demographics. Domestic birds exist in highly compact surroundings in small areas, and the vast majority of culls are preventative (especially in this case, with a disease that kills domestic birds in a day or two.) To get the same numbers, you would need a huge flock of birds of the susceptible type contained in the same area for some length of time. Even if the entire flock is infected, usually only a percentage will die on site, the rest dying, spread out, over a wide area miles away from the main kill. In addition, birds vary as to the virulence of the virus. Some may just be carriers, taking the virus thousands of miles with no ill effects. Others get sick and recover. Even those that are very ill can usually intermingle with domestic birds and other livestock, such as pigs, that also carry the disease. As far as which mutations are traveling, that is also deceptive, because for example, in a single herd of swine, it was determined that individual pigs were "selectively breeding" superior strains, which were then transmitted to the herd as a whole--a single herd Darwinistically created the most effective virus out of hundreds of permutations. In this way, domestic animals were reproducing a process that would take weeks or months in the wild, in days.

Posted by Anonymoose 2005-08-15 21:28|| 2005-08-15 21:28|| Front Page Top

#7 There is an awful lot we don't know about the origins of flu pandemics. However, one thing we do know is that jumping species and achieving sustained transmission is a rare event. We know this for certain with jumping to humans and can reasonably assume its true of all species (and all viruses for that matter). What this means is a population of viruses in one species is isolated from populations of the same virus in other species. As far as we are aware a wild bird has never transmitted H5N1 to a human.

The flu virus is unique in its capacity to rapidly evolve to get around host immunity. The presumption here is that capacity to contagiously and lethally infect birds will allow it to similarly affect humans. There is no evidence for this contention and I would argue against it on theoretical grounds. And even it were true, it doesn't address how the virus gets into humans and achieves sustained transmission. The reality is that many millions of domestics birds in Asia have a strain of H5N1 that can jump to humans and is lethal. What is missing is sustained transmission. I believe that will come from a coinfection in a human with regular flu that is already transmissable.

You are right in that domestic birds and animals are the issue. However, I would argue that what is happening in wild birds is irrelevant to the next flu pandemic (but may well be relevant to the one after next in 50 years time) and is being pushed by certain people who should know better.

Posted by phil_b 2005-08-15 21:54|| 2005-08-15 21:54|| Front Page Top

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