WHO: Bird Flu Cases Must Be Noted Sooner
WHO: Only Half of Human Bird Flu Cases Are Being Reported Within Two Weeks of Detection
By MARGIE MASON AP Medical Writer
DANANG, Vietnam May 6, 2006 (AP)— Only half the world's human bird flu cases are being reported to the World Health Organization within two weeks of being detected a response time that must be improved to avert a pandemic, a senior WHO official said Saturday.
Dr. Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, said it is estimated that countries would have only two to three weeks to stamp out, or at least slow, a pandemic flu strain after it began spreading in humans.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1931433
Experts dismiss scare over bird flu
By DIANE CHUN
Sun staff writer
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{Gary}Butcher has been an extension veterinarian at the University of Florida's College of Veterinary Medicine since 1988. He was trained as a veterinarian specializing in avian diseases, and has a Ph.D. in poultry virology.
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Lately, he's been traveling the world, speaking to alarmed government officials and industry groups dispelling the myths and reinforcing the realities of avian influenza or so-called "bird flu."
Gary Butcher begins his presentation with a slide that shows a "news flash" from the British press agency Reuters reporting that avian flu "poses the single biggest threat to the world right now."
The H5N1 avian flu virus has led to the death of 150 million birds, either through infection or culling to prevent the virus from spreading. So far, however, the number of people who have become infected remains small, with 121 confirmed illnesses and 62 reported fatalities as of Monday. No one has yet been proven to have given avian influenza to someone else.
The World Health Organization continues to warn that a human pandemic may occur and has advised national governments to make contingency plans. President Bush is expected to announce today the White House strategy for handling a potential pandemic during a visit to the National Institutes of Health.
"The emphasis of all my work has changed to dealing with this madness," Butcher said Friday, while briefly back at his office on the UF campus in Gainesville. "Realistically, avian influenza is not a threat to people, but everywhere you go, it has turned into a circus."
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The poultry industries in those countries have been greatly disrupted because of the public's flu fear. In countries where poultry consumption has dropped by 75 percent, it's a real crisis, Butcher said. So from an economic perspective, bird flu is a big issue.
Millions of chickens and waterfowl have been slaughtered in Asia in an attempt to halt the spread of the bird virus known as H5N1, but Butcher said that of the billions of people who have probably been exposed, only about 120 have been reported to have fallen ill with avian flu. They were people who worked closely with chickens and came into contact with the birds' blood and feces.
Butcher also said that there has yet to be a proven case in which one person is known to have passed the illness on to another.
Bird flu viruses have been around throughout history, he said. What is unique about the H5N1 strain is that, on rare occasions, it has shown the ability to infect humans.
"It is very inefficient, but it does manage," Butcher said.
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Not all health officials are sounding a warning about avian influenza, either.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a practicing internist and associate professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, is one physician who isn't buying into the scare scenario.
"If anything is contagious right now, it's judgment clouded by fear," Siegel said.
And if Americans are scared of avian flu now, Siegel continues, "imagine what will happen if a single scrawny, flu-ridden migratory bird somehow manages to reach our shores."
That, he maintains, is how the fear epidemic - as opposed to a flu pandemic - spreads.
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Because the United States exports about one-third of the 9 billion poultry produced, if potentially dangerous disease turns up, there is a policy of zero tolerance.
"Other countries would not accept poultry from anywhere in the United States if there was any question of infection," Butcher said.
http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051101/LOCAL/51101021/1078/news
US annual revenue per poultry processing employee is $140,000
The US poultry-processing industry comprises about 300 companies with combined annual revenue of $40 billion.
of http://www.poultex.com/news.asp?article=834
Russia will take US chicken despite ban
02 May 2006 10:18:32 GMT
Russia will accept American chicken shipments leaving U.S. ports by May 8 despite a new import ban, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has said.
Russia's government has temporarily cancelled licenses for all poultry shipments because of import violations, a move that took Johanns and the Bush administration by surprise. "I was extremely disappointed by the Russian action; there literally was no pre-notification," said Johanns. "This kind of action is an enormous disruption in terms of our trade relationship, and we are doing everything we can to minimize that disruption."
Poultry sales to Russia, the biggest foreign buyer of U.S. chicken, are worth more than $600 million annually, Johanns said. Overall, the U.S. industry is worth about $29 billion and sells about 14 percent of its products to foreign countries.
Johanns said he understands that Russia will admit poultry products departing seaports before May 8. Analysts have said overall poultry sales in the U.S. could drop by 5 percent because of Russia's restrictions. Russia's Agriculture Ministry said the cancellation was temporary and that new licenses would be issued within two weeks.
However, Russian poultry farmers have been calling for import restrictions, and the Russian government recently announced a 30 percent cut in imports to help farmers cope with consumer worries about bird flu.
Source: Associated Press
http://www.poultex.com/news.asp?article=1140
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